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U.S. officials said Friday that Russian troops had entered Crimea, as President Obama warned that there “will be costs for any military intervention” and vowed to stand by the Ukrainian people. Obama said he was “deeply concerned by reports of military movements,” that “would represent a profound interference in matters that must be determined by the Ukrainian people” and would constitute a “clear violation” of international law. As the United Nations Security Council held an emergency closed-door meeting, the United States and its allies scrambled to avoid a confrontation with echoes of the Cold War. After a day of increasingly alarming reports of an influx of Russian troops into Crimea, and U.S. references to a “fluid” situation, Obama appeared in the White House press room to pledge that “the United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine. “Just days after the world came to Russia for the Olympic games,” he said, “it would invite the condemnation of nations around the world.” Obama said that Vice President Biden has spoken Friday afternoon with Ukraine's new deputy prime minister “to assure him that in this difficult moment, the United States supports his government’s efforts.” “Any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing, which is not in the interests of Ukraine, Russia or Europe,” Obama said. While the president avoided confirming the Russian military movements, a senior administration official said that confirmation of an influx of troops was what led to the decision that Obama himself should speak publicly. The U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity about internal deliberations, declined to provide numbers or specific locations of Russian deployments. Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev told the Security Council that there had been an “illegal crossing [of] the borders by Russian military transport aircraft IL-76, about 10 of them, and that 11 military attack helicopters had also violated Ukrainian air space. The administration official said options being considered by the United States and its European partners if the Russians do not pull back included cancelling attendance at the June G8 summit to be held in Sochi, site of the recently-completed winter Olympics, and rejecting Russian overtures for deepening trade and commercial ties. The official also cited an indirect impact on the value of the ruble. There was no overt discussion of a Western military response. Asked what Ukraine wanted the international community to do, Sergeyev told reporters after the Security Council meeting that “we want you to help us bring the truth around the world...Political support--do everything possible in insurance of preventive diplomacy. Still we have a chance to stop the negative developments...with strong voice around the world.” The Council decided to send a mediator to Ukraine, and indicated it may hold further meetings. Russia did not respond directly to charges of new troop movements, saying only that any action it was taking was within the confines of existing Russia-Ukraine agreements to protect Russia’s Crimean naval base at Sevastapol. “As you know, we have an agreement with Ukraine on the presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” said Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s U.N. ambassador. “We are acting within the framework of that agreement.” Churkin, speaking to reporters, charged unnamed outsiders with provoking violence in Ukraine by recognizing the new government instead of allowing the “proper political process” to resolve the crisis there. He said that those who had taken over control had violated an agreement reached on Feb. 21 after consultations with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland that would have allowed subsequently ousted President Viktor Yanukovych to stay in office until the end of the year. Yanukovych fled that same night after threats that opposition forces “would be storming the presidential residence unless he resigns by 10 o’clock,” Churkin said. Asked whether Moscow had sent military forces into Crimea, Churkin said “I don’t have this specific information. I recall from history that when World War I started, some ... papers reported that they saw Cossacks at the train station. Those reports, they are not always true.” Greg Miller contributed to this report.

Sally Jenkins’s Feb. 8 front-page column, “A heart-seizing place of deep complexities,” on the startling gaps between the Sochi Olympics and Russia’s underserved population, made a number of good points that were echoed in news coverage of the Games. But now that the dust has settled (or, more aptly, that the snow has melted) with little more than a few hiccups, I respectfully suggest that a bit of honest U.S. self-assessment might temper some of Jenkins’s observations. She noted that a young Muscovite entreated her to “open your heart and your eyes and ears” on the 27-hour train ride from Moscow to Sochi to see “dilapidated cottages, corrugated tin roofs and . . . husks of old trains” as evidence of the “grim and the gorgeous coexist[ing] side by side.” Factual, I’m sure, but when was the last time Jenkins was on Amtrak? Try a 27-minute trip right here, from Washington to Baltimore; you’ll see more than our fair share of ramshackle housing and industrial waste, with a good measure of trash and graffiti to boot. Contrast, big time. A valid critique, but balanced reporting with open eyes also means looking in the mirror. ****Thomas C. Gaspard** , Potomac** ● Gracie Gold reflected the best in U.S. ladies figure skating at the Winter Olympics. She helped the U.S. team secure a bronze medal with her long program. She finished fourth in the individual competition, the top U.S. performer. She reflected the true Olympic spirit. So I was surprised and dismayed to see a picture of her falling to the ice in a large photo illustrating Sally Jenkins’s Feb. 21 Sports column, “Whether Sotnikova deserved win is difficult to judge,” with a caption “Gracie Gold falls while competing.” Gold deserved better. ****Janice L. Biennas** ,** **Williamsburg** I usually enjoy the weekly dose of schadenfreude served up by Chris Cillizza’s Worst Week in Washington [Outlook]. But Cillizza’s Feb. 23 installment, on Alexander Ovechkin, crossed a line. Yes, the Olympics did not go well for the Russian hockey team, and Ovechkin is certainly implicated in that, but his father’s heart surgery is a family matter of deep personal concern. Given that context, “Congrats, or something” was just plain wrong. For going from clever to clueless, I would say Cillizza had the worst week in Washington. ****Tom Barrett** , Alexandria** ● In the midst of The Post’s otherwise excellent article about Mikaela Shiffrin’s gold-medal-winning slalom run [“Keeping her cool,” Sports, Feb. 22], I was dismayed to read that she competed with “a cold contracted during the misery of Tuesday’s giant slalom, which was contested in snow and rain.” This statement promotes a persistent myth that getting cold and wet will give someone a cold, which is not true. A cold is an infection caused by a virus, not by weather. People who want to avoid catching a cold can go skiing in the rain with abandon as long as they practice good hand hygiene and stay away from infected people who are coughing and sneezing. ****Abby Marsh** , Washington**

The Feb. 23 Sunday Style article “For musicians, Stratocasters will never get old” was a fitting and timely tribute to the Fender Stratocaster, and it correctly pointed out that the guitar’s beauty as a physical object is a key element of its appeal. The article quoted Jeff Beck to support this point, and it was illustrated with a photo of Beck playing a guitar — a completely different guitar. Not only not a Stratocaster but also not even a Fender. This will not stand. I realize that The Post ran a correction on this point, but something more is needed. On behalf of all Strat lovers, I ask The Post to print a replacement photograph. ****Paul Kerrigan** , Vienna**

Regarding the Feb. 19 Food article “My family stack, elevated,” is The Post trying to kill us? One serving of Scratch Pancakes, which amounts to two 6-inch pancakes, contains 18 grams of fat, half of one’s daily cholesterol and 450 calories. And who has one serving of pancakes? Please consider this a desperate plea for more practical, healthy recipes. I enjoy the exotic recipes, but we could really use a hand with serving fresh, healthy food. I’d like to encourage The Post to set some nutritional guidelines for its recipes. Anything recommended for breakfast or lunch should contain no more than a third of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for fat, carbohydrates and cholesterol. Dinners could contain up to half. I’m not sure what to say about desserts. As it is, that would already be more than 100 percent of one’s RDA, but I’m trying to be reasonable. And if something is really decadent — such as the Scratch Pancakes — then The Post should tell us so. Those are a special-occasion breakfast, not an every-Saturday-morning affair. I have a deep and abiding affection for the Food section (before I’ve had a cup of coffee, the only reason I know it’s Wednesday is because the Food section has come). But, please, let’s have more recipes that help readers and families stay fit and healthy. ****Cindy Johnson** , Washington**

The Feb. 23 front-page article “Casino security always looking for the next cheat” reported that “Casino cheats include card counters and people who try to steal chips from distracted dealers and players.” There are plenty of cheats in casinos, but card counters are not among them. Casinos are thrilled that this sham continues to be perpetuated, but quite simply, it is a falsehood, according to numerous court cases, as well as the Maryland state gambling law. That law defines cheating as “engaging in conduct including . . . placing, cancelling, increasing, or decreasing a bet based on knowledge that is not available to other players.” Card counters at a blackjack table use the same information that is available to everyone to make educated, informed betting and playing decisions. While card counting may be the road less traveled, that fact makes all the difference. ****Dan Morris** , Rockville**

I’ve enjoyed reading “Beetle Bailey” for several decades, but I was put off by the lame attempt at irony in the Feb. 16 installment. Sneering at honest work that needs to be done — and at the people who do it — is neither funny nor a good message. Borrowing Sarge’s line — “Think how doing a good job will help you succeed in life . . . work toward a career!” — one might even imagine that conscientious work actually would make one a better person. The presumption of an elitist perspective is palpable and troubling. I hope that perspective is not as widespread as the comic strip’s authors seem to think it is. ****Patrick Sullivan** , Herndon**

It was Friday, and Chinatown was bustling with young adults ready for a night out in the District. But on the second floor of a church annex at Eighth and H streets NW, Rabbi Aaron Miller was reading to a hushed room from Exodus 24:1. “Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 elders of Israel ascended,” Miller said. “And they saw the God of Israel: under His feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity.” Miller’s reading sparked an immediate response from the young professionals seated at tables for Metro Minyan, a monthly gathering that brings together Jewish 20- and 30-somethings. “Why are we taking this so literally?” said one woman after Miller finished. A conversation ensued about how to apply Old Testament lessons to modern problems. “Do we take the Bible literally or as history, or something that as Jews, grows, changes and evolves over time?” Miller asked. The gatherings are designed to create a community for young Jewish professionals in the Washington region. Jews around the world start their Sabbath observations on Friday nights, with services that often include candles, wine and bread. Rabbis read from the Torah and offer blessings. Metro Minyan — ‘Minyan’ is a Hebrew word for prayer gathering, Miller said — offers participants a chance to connect with their peers and faith leaders in a similar fashion. About 250 people gathered that particular Friday evening to study, sing and eat together. They discussed the Old Testament and how it applies to their lives. Miller said a growing number of young Jewish professionals are looking for “a Jewish place to learn, pray and, of course, meet each other.” He said “every detail of the shabbat experience, from selecting Metro-accessible venues to serving Thai food,” is geared toward the city’s Jewish young adults. Sponsored by Washington Hebrew Congregation, the group was started two years ago by 2239, an auxiliary group whose members are 22 to 39 years old. The Metro Minyan also serves as an informal social club, Miller said. The group sponsors outings to Nationals baseball games, wine-tasting trips, and a special Purim ball and Passover seder. “For me, Metro Minyan is an opportunity, as a young Jewish professional in D.C., to come together once a month to eat, pray, study and come together as a community,” said Marc Friend, 25, a contractor who lives in Northwest Washington. “This is a good opportunity to meet old and new friends.” Metro Minyan organizers said that the monthly meeting is designed to help young Jewish adults connect with their heritage after they’ve left home but before they’ve started families of their own. “I think now more than ever, recent college graduates are searching for meaning and connection in their lives,” Miller said. “For many Jews, however, engagement unfortunately stops during adolescence and restarts decades later when they have children and rejoin a congregation.” During the January service, the attendees, who represented a mix of Jewish traditions, sang in Hebrew from the Mishkan T’Filah, a prayer book for Reform congregations: “You shall love Adonai, your God, with all your hearts, with all your soul and with all your might.” During the study portion of Metro Minyan in January, Miller fielded questions about a lesson from Exodus. Participants also discussed what happened as Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt. During a robust discussion, one participant said that it was all right if people disagreed. “To be Jewish is to wrestle with struggle,” the woman said. “I just think that it is incredible that you can get 200 to 250 young professionals to get together on a Friday, with everything else that is going on in this city,” said Valerie Hillman, a member of the 2239 committee as she welcomed people to the gathering, held in the annex of Calvary Baptist Church. Seated at the table next to Hillman was committee member Matt Solomon, who said the group’s young professionals are involved in community service projects and other events across the region. “For me, it is about connecting with the community,” he said. That, Miller said, is what he wants each participant to take from the meetings, held on the fourth Friday of the month. “I hope that this generation of Jews are inspired and are dedicated to carry with them that Jewish spark, that Jewish spirit, whether they are here in D.C. or wherever their lives may take them,” Miller said. “That they are so moved by this experience at Metro Minyan, that no matter where they go, where they get married or the communities they end up, they strive as best they can to create what being a Jew means.”

D.C. police say they have made an arrest in the 1994 killing of a Northeast Washington man. Frank Joseph Williams IV, 41, of Silver Spring was charged with first-degree murder in the Oct. 15, 1994, death of Kevin Spencer Proctor. Proctor, 29, was shot in Northeast. ** — Dana Hedgpeth ** A passenger in a car was found with life-threatening injuries Friday night in the Seat Pleasant area after shots were heard there, Prince George’s County police said. During the investigation into the shots, an officer stopped a car near Hill Oaks Road about 7:30 p.m., police said. After the driver emerged, his actions caused the officer to feel that he was in danger. The officer fired his gun, but bullets did not strike the passenger or anyone else, said Lt. Bill Alexander, a police spokesman. It was unclear how the passenger was wounded, police said. The incident was under investigation. **— Martin Weil** A fire, possibly ignited intentionally, broke out Friday night in an eight-story condominium apartment building in District Heights, authorities said. The fire broke out on one of the colder nights of the year in a building in the 2000 block of Brooks Drive, county fire department spokesman Mark Brady said. He said smoke was being ventilated after the small fire on the fifth floor. No injuries were reported. **— Martin Weil** Five people have been charged in recent acts of vandalism that damaged more than 100 parked cars in the Centreville area, Fairfax County police said. Three adults from Manassas have been arrested and charged with four counts of felony destruction of property and two counts of misdemeanor destruction of property. The vehicles were struck with BB-like projectiles between Feb. 2 and Feb. 18, police said. **— Justin Jouvenal** A former Fairfax County firefighter and paramedic was sentenced Friday to 151 / 2 years in prison for producing child pornography, according to authorities and court records. Andrew Choi, 35, of Springfield pleaded guilty in September to production of child pornography. **— Matt Zapotosky**

A newly hired D.C. firefighter who failed to help a dying man last month was properly trained, the District’s deputy mayor for public safety said Friday, countering the cadet’s assertion he didn’t know what to do when people sought help at his fire station. The deputy mayor, Paul A. Quander Jr., said the rookie — along with others in the station that day — should have known he could have responded. “He may have been under extreme pressure when things were happening,” Quander said. The mistreatment of 77-year-old Medric Cecil Mills Jr. has become the latest incident to dog a fire department reeling from a year of missteps over getting help quickly to patients. It has raised questions over training and prompted critics, including the firefighters union and two council members, to label the department an institutional failure while calling for the ouster of Fire Chief Kenneth B. Ellerbe. The deputy mayor puts the blame on five firefighters with Truck 15, calling Mills’s death a failure of individual moral character. Quander said that if the cadet, 19-year-old Remy Jones, was, indeed, ignorant about what was expected of him, it means the lieutenant in charge of the firehouse failed her duties as well. He said cadets are on probation for 18 months because they need be able to handle life-and-death emergencies “without thinking, but knowing what to do when the pressure comes.” Jones, who was at the station’s watch desk Jan. 25, turned away at least two bystanders who sought help for Mills when he collapsed from a heart attack across the street from a fire station on Rhode Island Avenue in Northeast Washington. Mills died at a hospital. A report issued last week by the fire department said Jones told people that he could not respond until someone called 911. The report said he twice requested help from the lieutenant in charge, but she did not respond to announcements made over the intercom. Jones did tell another firefighter, who passed the request on to the lieutenant, but no effort was made to respond, the report said. Instead, a firefighter retired to his bunk to study for a promotional exam, the report concluded. Compounding the mistakes, a fire engine and ambulance that were eventually dispatched were sent to the wrong address, in Northwest Washington instead of Northeast. A 911 tape indicates a caller correcting an operator, but her note never got through to the dispatcher. Mills got help only after a D.C. police officer flagged down a passing ambulance. Jones told internal investigators that he had never been trained how to respond when someone approaches the station seeking help, and that he was afraid to leave his post because he did not want to get into trouble. He said he did not ring the station alarm bell because he mistakenly thought that could only be done at night. Karen Evans, an attorney for the Mills family, said she is troubled by the new information. “If you’re working at a watch desk, it is patently obvious that you should know how to respond when a member of the public approaches your fire station requesting urgent medical assistance,” she said. Jones’s defense is contained in a confidential Internal Affairs file that was prepared by fire department investigators for disciplinary hearings, the first of which is scheduled for March 17 for Lt. Kellene Davis, who was the lieutenant in charge that day. It is separate from the shorter report the District made public last week and contains additional details, such as statements from Jones and others. Part of that 130-page report was obtained by WTTG (Fox 5), which shared excerpts with The Washington Post. The Post verified that the excerpts were authentic. Davis has not been reached for comment. Jones, reached by phone Thursday night, referred questions to the fire department’s internal affairs unit, saying he would “get in trouble” if he spoke about his actions. He also criticized The Post for continuing to report on the incident. “Every day is a new day,” he said. “I don’t understand why there is public interest in this. Why haven’t you found a new story?” He said that he has become “emotionally disturbed” because of the media’s calls and visits to his family’s home. “I am a firefighter,” he said. “I have duties.” Quander, the deputy mayor, attributed Jones’s comments to his youth and inexperience. “Do I wish he had chosen his words differently?” he said. “Of course. The reason this is important is that a man died and we didn’t do what we were supposed to do to help.” The Washington Post previously reported that Jones, who graduated in November with his cadet class, ran into problems at the training academy. Two supervisors documented his poor attitude and disrespect for fellow cadets and the chain of command, according to internal reports obtained by The Post. The cadet program has become a key initiative during Ellerbe’s three-year tenure. He resurrected and supported the program, which recruits recent graduates from D.C. high schools, after previous fire chief Dennis L. Rubin canceled it because of concerns about the quality of the candidates and the standards of their training. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), a mayoral candidate, and Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) have called for Ellerbe’s resignation. Get updates on your area delivered via e-mail

When President Obama hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, a fundamental division will be on display: Obama is pushing for a nuclear deal with Iran on terms the Israeli leader has already rejected. Obama is closer than ever this year to his campaign goal of a nuclear accord with Iran. As Netanyahu and thousands of pro-Israel Americans visit Washington for the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference, which opens this weekend, Obama’s challenge will be to show how an improving relationship with Iran does not damage ties with Israel. The AIPAC meeting showcases Israel’s unique position among U.S. allies and its strong influence on Capitol Hill. Hundreds of delegates will lobby Congress on issues including Iran, Middle East peace and the effect of the Syrian civil war on Israel. A bipartisan effort to enact additional sanctions against Iran, derailed by the White House but championed by AIPAC, will be a main topic. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Secretary of State John F. Kerry will address the forum. Obama will not, although he has done so in the past. Lew’s department is in charge of enforcing the heavy net of sanctions that helped force Iran to enter serious talks. An Oval Office visit between the U.S. and Israeli leaders has become customary on the sidelines of the AIPAC conference. “The president looks forward to discussing with the prime minister progress in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, developments in Iran, and other regional priorities,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Friday. Obama is expected to press Netanyahu to continue peace talks with the Palestinians as negotiations move into a critical phase. Israel is due to release a final group of Palestinian prisoners at the end of March under an agreement to get peace talks started last year. It’s a politically risky move that has caused Netanyahu trouble within his government coalition. The United States wants Netanyahu to stick to the plan, but U.S. and Israeli officials acknowledged this week that he may seek additional concessions. Palestinians, for their part, are likely to put off taking further steps until the last of the prisoners are free. Kerry said this week that success depends on each side’s will to forge ahead. “I wouldn’t be pursuing it if I didn’t think it was worthwhile,” Kerry said during a roundtable interview with reporters Wednesday. “I hope we’re not wasting our time. I hope very much that we’re able to get both parties to do what is necessary to enter the most critical stage of this.” Kerry brought the two sides to the table under heavy pressure last summer for what have been the most sustained peace talks in years. Kerry had originally set a deadline of late April to announce a final deal but acknowledged this week that his timetable has shifted. He is now trying to get both sides to agree to what he calls a framework for a final deal. The interim agreement would set the terms for arduous and highly technical negotiations over a final peace deal to end the decades-long conflict. It’s a hard sell to both sides, because it is tantamount to a final deal and would box the leaders in to concessions they have long resisted. If both sides agree, “then we get into the final negotiations,” Kerry said in the interview. “I don’t think anybody would worry if there’s another nine months or whatever it’s going to be to finish up” a peace treaty, Kerry said. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will visit the White House on March 17. Kerry’s last visit with Abbas went poorly, according to a Palestinian newspaper. Kerry proposed concessions at meetings in Paris more than a week ago that included a Palestinian capital in only part of East Jerusalem instead of the whole district, Al-Quds reported. But Iran is expected to dominate discussions next week in Washington. Netanyahu opposed the placeholder international agreement reached last fall as overly generous to a nation he views as a mortal threat and insufficient to guarantee that Iran could not manufacture a nuclear weapon. Israel is advocating a much tougher line in the final deal under negotiation but isn’t a party to the talks. The outline for the proposed final deal is already clear, and it envisions allowing Iran to retain at least a modest domestic uranium enrichment program. Netanyahu, however, has said Iran must not be left with any nuclear manufacturing capability. “Zero enrichment, zero centrifuges, zero plutonium,” Netanyahu said last week at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

_Yuval Steinitz is Israel’s minister of intelligence._ A final deal that allows Iran to retain centrifuges for uranium enrichment ultimately would allow the development of nuclear weapons in Iran, encourage a Sunni-Shiite arms race in the Middle East and weaken counterproliferation efforts worldwide. Iran already possesses ballistic missiles suited to carry nuclear warheads and advanced knowledge of weaponization. Given that the production of fissile material — whether by enriching uranium in centrifuges or extracting plutonium from nuclear reactors — is the principal stage in the process of making a nuclear weapon, acquiescing to Iranian enrichment is tantamount to legitimizing Iran’s status on the nuclear threshold. Proposals for the final agreement to restrict the number of centrifuges are almost irrelevant. Even if Iran were forced to reduce its number of centrifuges to only 3,000, its stockpile of uranium enriched to 3.5 percent would allow the production of enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb within six months. If forced to start from scratch with 3,000 centrifuges, Iran could still produce enough fissile material to make a nuclear weapon within one year. The chances of Iran developing the bomb as a “threshold country” are considerable: North Korea did so after signing a similar deal in 2007. Becoming a nuclear power was the ayatollahs’ initial objective and the reason Tehran invested around $50 billion in this project. Yes, there are other countries on the nuclear threshold, but unlike Germany and Japan, Iran is unlikely to maintain its threshold status. The ayatollahs’ regime poses a threat to its Sunni neighbors. Tehran calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state and sponsors terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, all of which sparks fear in other countries. Sooner or later, Tehran’s anxiety over potential retaliatory actions against its regime, including its nuclear project, would increase pressures within Iran to dash toward a fait accompli nuclear weapon. As for the Sunni-Shiite arms race, the critical reaction to an international agreement would be not in Washington but in Cairo, Ankara and Riyadh. Even if the Western powers express confidence in Iran’s commitment and pledge a vigorous economic and military response to any Iranian violation, regional players will render their own judgments. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s “charm offensive” has had a dramatic effect in the West, but no one in the Middle East buys Iran’s projection of pacifism. Indeed, Tehran’s direct involvement in Sunni-Shiite carnage in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq has sharpened its image. Iran’s breakout capability will be pivotal in regional assessments, with most governments likely to conclude that if the deal leaves Iran only a year or two away from the bomb Tehran ultimately will go nuclear. Any deal that legitimizes Iran as an unpunished, sanctions-free country on the nuclear threshold might spark a nuclear arms race in the region, as Saudi Arabia has hinted. Some Sunni states might seek to develop the bomb in a bid to achieve parity with Iran or to ensure their ability to join the nuclear club if Tehran does. Paradoxically, such an arms race might provide Tehran the ultimate excuse to produce the bomb: to keep pace with the rivals its own actions drove to go nuclear. Even if Iran kept its commitment to avoid the bomb, allowing it to retain centrifuges could have grave global implications. Should the final compromise include de facto recognition of Iran’s “right to enrich,” the international community would find it difficult to insist later that other problematic regimes concede that “right.” Unfortunately, the interim agreement has already linked Iran’s hypothetical future enrichment to its civilian “practical needs.” Practical needs is interpreted mainly as enrichment needed to fuel nuclear power stations. Such a civilian purpose demands more centrifuges than are in Iran’s inventory. In other words, it seems to allow for even more centrifuges than are militarily needed for the annual production of several nuclear bombs. More than 20 countries produce electricity in nuclear reactors, and dozens more are planning to do so. If Iran were ultimately allowed to enrich, how would the United States justify its demand that, say, Egypt, Jordan or South Korea eschew uranium enrichment for peaceful civilian purposes? How would U.S. officials argue that what the deal concedes to the ayatollahs’ regime, after a decade of flagrant violations of six U.N. Security Council resolutions and their commitments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, is forbidden for more responsible countries? How could the United States cast greater legitimacy on the previously clandestine centrifuge facilities in Qom and Natanz than on those that would be aboveboard from the outset? Inevitably, multiple countries, including some rogue states, would insist on their own enrichment facilities. With centrifuges equally capable of enriching uranium for nuclear energy or nuclear bombs, such a deal might generate many new threshold states. Under such circumstances, local disputes or changes in government eventually would push some countries across the threshold. Ironically, a deal intended to prevent the nuclear armament of one dangerous country, Iran, could plant the seeds for the wholesale sprouting of many nuclear powers. **Read more about this issue:** Ray Takeyh: The U.S. undercuts its own power in Iran nuclear talks David Ignatius: Iran’s fingerprints in Fallujah Iranian President Hassan Rouhani: Time for engagement with the world James Jeffrey: The repercussions of America’s uncertain tone in the Middle East

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — Baltimore second baseman Jemile Weeks made a quick impression during the Orioles’ 4-2 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in the Grapefruit League opener Friday. Weeks, who was acquired in December from Oakland in the Jim Johnson trade, led off the game with a double to left field off former Orioles left-hander Erik Bedard, then scored two batters later on Steve Clevenger’s one-out single. In his next at-bat in the second inning, Weeks drew a walk from Heath Bell, stole second base, moved to third on a single by Francisco Peguero and later scored on a wild pitch. Weeks said seeing his name atop the batting order for the Orioles’ first Grapefruit League game was “a confidence builder.” “It’s good to get out there and let them see some of your capabilities and what you can do on the field,” he said before the game. “It was a good thing for me [to see]. . . . Hopefully it’s an indication of an idea of where they think I might be able to fit in in the lineup, and it also gives them a look of how I handle that position. I’m excited about it, and hopefully we can do this more often than not.” Weeks is battling Ryan Flaherty for the starting second base job. Weeks has a minor league option remaining, but Manager Buck Showalter said Thursday that will not work against him. “The sky is the limit with me,” Weeks said. “That’s how I feel. And whatever I put forth and the energy and determination you put into it, you get good results. I think the work we’re putting in here and the way I’m approaching it, I feel like there’s going to be good results.” He’s had a strong showing already. During the club’s first intrasquad game on Wednesday, Weeks made a nice over-the-shoulder leaping grab of a line drive. In Thursday’s intrasquad game, he singled and walked. After his fourth-inning walk, he also tagged and took second base on a flyball to center. “[It’s] not only the speed, but being smart with the speed is one of the things I try to pride myself in, from learning over the years how to be smarter and being the speed guy that I’m supposed to be,” Weeks said. “It’s one of my best quality traits.” Chris Tillman didn’t waste any time reminding everyone why he was the winningest pitcher on the team’s staff last year. He struck out three and gave up just one hit over two innings against a representative Rays lineup. Monica Barlow, public relations director for the Baltimore Orioles, has died, the team said. A statement from the Orioles said Barlow died Friday of cancer. She was 36 and lived in Ellicott City. Barlow, a graduate of the College of William and Mary, was an intern for the Orioles in 1999. She worked for the Richmond Braves in 2000 and returned to the Orioles in 2001. She was promoted to director of public relations in 2008. Orioles managing partner Peter Angelos said in a statement that Barlow did not let her illness define her and the strength and resiliency she displayed were a great inspiration. ** — Baltimore Sun ** The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Martin E. Sullivan, who as director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery from 2008 to 2012 tried to push the museum past its reputation for staid and unrisky works of art and found himself at the center of a battle over self-censorship, died Feb. 25 at his home in Piney Point, Md. He was 70. Dr. Sullivan resigned in May 2012 after a stroke. The immediate cause of death was renal failure, his daughter Bethany Sullivan said. A museum executive for three decades, Dr. Sullivan was credited at the National Portrait Gallery with commissioning works depicting a world far beyond its traditional emphasis on presidents and first ladies. Such portraits included those of Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver and restaurateur Alice Waters. In October 2010, the portrait gallery mounted “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” considered one of the museum’s more ambitious efforts to move beyond dignified portraits of American leaders. It was billed as “the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture” and included works by Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. The exhibition immediately drew the ire of conservative advocacy groups and House lawmakers for its inclusion of a work of video art that offended some Christians. “A Fire in My Belly,” a video created by the late David Wojnarowicz, briefly depicted a crucifix covered with ants. Wojnarowicz, who died in 1992 of complications from AIDS, made the video in the 1980s. Its reappearance at the gallery led to an uproar by congressional leaders, including soon-to-be House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee. They objected to the use of taxpayer dollars for the Wojnarowicz piece. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League advocacy group, told the New York Times that Wojnarowicz’s art was hate speech. “It would jump out at people if they had ants crawling all over the body of Muhammad,” he said. By late November, Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough ordered Wojnarowicz’s art taken down, spurring a furious national debate about censorship. The incident also seemed poised to provoke a revival of the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s over the purpose of art and, specifically, the federal funding of art. It fell to Dr. Sullivan to explain the Portrait Gallery’s decision publicly. He called “A Fire in My Belly” a distraction from the rest of the show and added that he did not want to make the museum the target of those seeking to cut federal arts budgets. He told the Times: “The piece, which was made in the late ’80s in Mexico, had much more to do with the reality of the suffering of the AIDS epidemic in Latin American culture, with that vivid, colorful imagery and sometimes shocking metaphors.” Soon after the outcry, the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired the Wojnarowicz video. Martin Edward Sullivan was born Feb. 9, 1944, in Troy, N.Y. He was a 1965 graduate of Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y. At the University of Notre Dame, he received a master’s degree in 1970 and a doctorate in 1974, both in American history. Early in his career, he helped administer museum grants programs at the National Endowment for the Humanities. As director from 1983 to 1990 of the New York State Museum in Albany, N.Y., he led the return of sacred belts from the museum collection to the Onondaga Nation of Indians. For much of the 1990s, Dr. Sullivan was director of the Heard Museum of American Indian Art and History in Phoenix. From 1999 to 2008, he was chief executive of the Historic St. Mary’s City museum in Maryland, where he reportedly raised $30 million, in large part from the state, to focus on restoration and archaeology. Dr. Sullivan served on national boards on museum standards, ethics and practices. From 1995 to 2003, he chaired the State Department’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee, which advises the U.S. government on the pillage, looting and illicit sale of antiquities. Among other honors, he received the American Alliance of Museums’ 2014 award for distinguished service to museums. Survivors include his wife of 32 years, Katherine Hostetter Sullivan of Piney Point; two daughters, Abigail Maslin and Bethany Sullivan, both of Washington; a stepson, James Matthew Cole of Cave Creek, Ariz.; a brother; and a grandson.

President Obama’s new outreach initiative to help at-risk boys of color — “My Brother’s Keeper” — is cause for cheer. It isn’t that we haven’t known for some time that minority boys are in trouble. Poor school performance, truancy, delinquency and, ultimately, high incarceration rates cannot be separated from the absence of fathers in many homes. Out-of-wedlock births are at 72 percent in the African American community and 53 percent among Latinos, compared with 29 percent among non-Hispanic whites. But sometimes things can change only when the right messenger comes along. Obama is that man, though he seems to have realized it late in his game. Or perhaps he feared criticism for focusing on the black half of himself and waited for a second term. Whatever brought him here, he may as well be reading from an old text — the 1965 Moynihan Report, when then-Assistant Labor Secretary Daniel Patrick Moynihan first sounded the alarm about family disintegration and fatherlessness in the black community. Wrote Moynihan the following year: “A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken homes, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future — that community asks for and gets chaos.” Moynihan was clobbered by civil rights leaders who felt that other concerns — school integration, voting rights and the end of Jim Crow laws — were more crucial to black ascendance than family organization. But today, with an African American in the highest office, we can afford to take another look. It would seem that Moynihan had a point — and back then the out-of-wedlock birthrate among African Americans was just 25 percent. Since the 1960s, as women have made strides toward greater empowerment, the trend of fatherlessness has been largely overlooked except by a few lonely voices in the media, including yours truly and, notably, Christina Hoff Sommers and Cathy Young. Otherwise, the noisemakers were men, mostly white, who garnered more mockery than consideration, drowned out by feminists who dismissed fathers as nonessential, often conflating the incidence of abusive or “bad” fathers with an indictment of men generally. Those who insisted otherwise were characterized as heretical pawns of the patriarchy. Though this interpretation persists in smallish circles, we seem to have transcended such facile branding. It is harder to hold the antagonist’s ground, moreover, when the president himself — a black man who experienced the pain of father abandonment — reiterates Moynihan’s observations. Whatever one’s politics, this is great news for the country. A nation can’t long flourish without the commitment of fathers to raise their sons — and, yes, their daughters, too. Announcing $200 million in private funding for the initiative whereby businesses will connect young men with mentors, the president spoke about his personal history as a young son growing up without a father. This first-person connection is Obama’s most powerful weapon in encouraging two-parent homes, as well as highlighting societal trends that have minimized the importance of men and the need for role models to teach boys how to be men. Who better than the president of the United States? Well, of course, a father, but meanwhile. . . . In minority communities, fathers became scarcer in part owing to a welfare program that was predicated upon no man in the house. It would not take long before marriage and fathers made little economic sense to many mothers. Three generations later, two-parent families have become a quaint memory. Rather than tackling the source of problems in minority communities, we have embraced a pop culture that celebrates destructive behavior via movies and music. Magazine covers and chatty television shows, meanwhile, cutesify the tragedy of casual procreation by touting baby-daddies and baby-mamas, who aren’t so adorable in the inner city where the biological offspring of such lyrical liaisons are most often doomed to a life without much promise. A culture faced with such challenges can only benefit from the president’s attentions, especially as he has sway with the media that shape so much of our culture. The uniqueness of his outreach isn’t only that he is a man of color and has shared the sorrow of having to imagine his father’s dreams but also that he is inoculated from criticisms that might have been raised against a different politician. This is gratifying progress and marks a victory of common sense over ideology. Hurray. _Read more fromKathleen Parker’s archive, follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook._ **Read more about this issue:** Colbert I. King: When fatherless young offenders are fathers themselves George F. Will: Lifting up the fatherless Kay Hymowitz: An enduring crisis for the black family Kathleen Parker: Why fathers will always matter Kathleen Parker: Father is the new F-word

COLORADO SPRINGS In today’s unforgiving politics, both parties often think: “If at first you don’t succeed, don’t darken our door again.” Ken Buck, however, had another idea. In 2010, he peeved national Republican leaders by seeking the Colorado party’s Senate nomination against a candidate preferred by those leaders. He won the primary but maladroit campaigning erased his mid-October lead against Democrat Michael Bennet, who won the election — and now is chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Last Wednesday, Buck complicated Bennet’s task of helping Democrats retain control of the Senate. Until then, Buck had been seeking the Republican nomination to run against Sen. Mark Udall. Buck’s motto might have been, “If at first you don’t succeed, so what? Neither did Mickey Mantle.” (In 1951, the Yankees sent Mantle back to the minors.) Buck is a sizable fellow whose bulk and demeanor say “football,” but his persistence is not testimony to an inordinate love of, or skill at, the blocking and tackling of politics. “Your parents,” he says, “warn you not to brag about yourself or beg, and what you do in politics is brag and beg.” You seek contributions to finance advertisements proclaiming your excellence. It speaks well of him that this does not come naturally. But speaking well, as that is understood in politics — circumlocutions serving tactical reticence — is not his forte. Winston Churchill said Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was a bull who carried his own china shop around with him. Buck, a former Princeton football player, brings to politics an NFL linebacker’s negligible interest in subtlety, and a prosecutor’s — he is one — tenacity and pugnacity. Before a 2010 campaign event, when questioned about Barack Obama’s citizenship, Buck, speaking near a tape recorder, laughingly said to someone, “Will you tell those dumbasses at the tea party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I’m on the camera?” When he was asked at a campaign stop last week about impeaching Obama, he explained earnestly that senators are the jurors in an impeachment trial and Democrats are a Senate majority. It was an answer technically correct but politically inept because it could elicit from hostile media a headline such as “Buck ponders Obama impeachment.” In 2010, Buck’s inability to deflect baiting questions with dusty answers led him, on national television, to discuss homosexuality, comparing it to alcoholism. On Wednesday, the hidden — but inferable — hand of the national GOP shuffled Colorado’s political deck. Second-term Republican Rep. Cory Gardner, 39, who represents the sprawling district that includes the eastern half of the state and where Mitt Romney won 59 percent of the vote, will seek and probably win the Republican Senate nomination. Buck, who lives in the district, will seek and probably win the nomination for Gardner’s House seat. This minuet demonstrates that the national GOP is becoming more energetic about influencing state parties’ candidate selections. In 2010 and 2012, weak candidates here and in Delaware, Missouri, Indiana and Nevada helped prevent Republicans from winning Senate control. A recent Quinnipiac poll, which showed Udall only narrowly leading Buck (45 percent to 42 percent), recorded Obama’s approval in Colorado at 37 percent. Sixty percent of Coloradans oppose Obamacare. Gardner, who has a solid conservative voting record but does not have a serrated edge, is suited to purple Colorado. In a forthcoming issue of the National Interest, Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington explains why Republicans rarely nominate the most conservative presidential candidate. Olsen says there are four kinds of Republican voters: moderates, somewhat conservatives, evangelicals and very conservative, secular voters. The somewhat conservatives are the largest cohort, about 35 percent to 40 percent of the national GOP. And, Olsen says, “they always back the winner”: Exit polls “from virtually any state caucus or primary since 1996” show “the winner received a plurality of or ran roughly even among the somewhat conservative voters.” They “are found in similar proportions in every state,” unlike evangelicals, who are found disproportionately in Southern and border states. In presidential years, moderates are the second-largest group, approximately 25 percent to 30 percent of all GOP voters — even including 31 percent to 39 percent in South Carolina since 1996. More than 80 percent of Colorado voters, many of them independents, live on the Front Range, from Fort Collins to Denver to Pueblo. Last week, the national GOP may have found a template for making 2014 more rewarding and 2016, when its presidential nominee must win some blue and purple states, less daunting. _Read more fromGeorge F. Will’s archive or follow him on Facebook._ **Read more about this topic:** Dana Milbank: A battle for the soul Kathleen Parker: Jindal comes out swinging E.J. Dionne Jr.: Is the GOP giving up tea?

Vincent Orange, Andy Shallal, Reta Jo Lewis and Carlos Allen might consider this question to be impertinent, but here goes: Is running for mayor of the District of Columbia the best use of their time? Yes, they have the right to run. They earned places on the ballot, having filed the required paperwork to become candidates. What’s more, city tax dollars aren’t at stake. The money they are spending is coming out of their pockets or from contributors. Still, why do they remain in the race? Mayor Vincent Gray and D.C. Council members Muriel Bowser, Jack Evans and Tommy Wells are, on the other hand, credible candidates. Each goes into the Democratic primary with a history of community involvement and public service. They have records of tackling issues of concern to the community. (How well or poorly is another matter. That’s what elections help decide.) These four officials know something about the government they wish to lead; they have experience running for office and persuading voters. Unless the surveys and various straw polls are way off the mark, Orange, Shallal, Lewis and Allen haven’t caught on with primary voters. Each of the four has about as much chance of being declared the winner of the April 1 Democratic primary as I have of finding a vegetarian great white shark. The latest NBC4/WAMU/Washington Informer/Marist poll shows Shallal, Orange, Lewis and Allen at the bottom of the eight-candidate field: Shallal at 6 percent, followed by Orange at 4 percent, Lewis at 3 percent and Allen at 1 percent. Other polls, including that of The Post, also showed the four lagging behind. To be clear, all candidates deserve credit for stepping forward and offering to serve. There is an element of sacrifice in running for office. Campaigning is hard work: All that studying. Getting up to speed on the issues. All those candidate forums. Canvassing, knocking on doors and working Metro stops. Asking, asking, always asking. Smiling, all that smiling. But Election Day is only four weeks away. Early voting starts March 17. At this stage, the ground game comes into play. The campaign turns away from hanging posters and planting lawn signs to identifying supporters and getting them to the polls. It’s time to face unpleasant truths, one of which is that Shallal, Lewis, Allen and Orange are not likely to win. Thus the choice: Slog on — wasting energy, time and money — or exit gracefully. That’s a call each has to make. There is also a more consequential impact on the mayoral primary campaign, should the bottom four decide to remain in the race. Their appearances at mayoral forums and other campaign events draw time and attention from the major contenders. And the contest has entered a phase in which voters need to zero in on Gray, Bowser, Evans and Wells. The top four warrant close attention. Let’s start with Tommy Wells, the man with a message — or messages. What’s that old saying? If you don’t like the weather in Washington, just wait a minute. So, too, with Wells. Since declaring for mayor, he has been billed as: chief scourge of lobbyists, contractors and robbers of government virtue; an at-risk kid’s best friend; a fan of car owners but also a lover of bike lanes and jobs to which you can walk; and the biggest foe Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe has ever known. That approach is too categorical; it lacks broad appeal. Wells has been selling himself short. Jack Evans, by contrast, is marketing his strong suit: how to make things work. Jack knows stuff. He’s up on the government, the players and how deals get cut. He’s also, after D.C. Council member Marion Barry, the most race-conscious elected official in town. Not racist, mind you. But Evans is oh-so-sensitive to the fact that he’s white. He seems to think being Caucasian stands in the way of him getting elected by acclamation. Jack, it’s not that you’re white. Sometimes you come across as a doofus. Get over it. You are far better than that. Muriel Bowser is this year’s surprise. I’ve watched her in action over the years. She has never seemed more confident, sure-footed and directed. In a tension-filled Ward 4 community meeting this week, her leadership skills were on display. Little wonder she’s nipping at the mayor’s heels. Speaking of which, Gray is trying to move on from the 2010 debacle and campaign on his record. It’s time, he says, to make progress. Pretty hard to do, however, with U.S. Attorney Ron Machen Jr. riding his back. Round the turn they come, and down the stretch. _Read more fromColbert King’s archive._ **Read more:** The Post’s View: Muriel Bowser for D.C. mayor Jack Evans: The right mayor for D.C. Jonetta Rose Barras: Is a black candidate the best candidate?

No one really needs a newsstand anymore. We have tablets and smartphones and 4G to pull up all the breaking news from Le Monde or Der Spiegel, if that’s what we want, before we get out of bed. We don’t need to bend down to the lower shelves to find this month’s GQ or to get a dose of the old home-town paper, all those Plain Dealers and Press Scimitars. We don’t need to rush down to the newsstand for the latest on our shared trauma (“Japs Bomb Pearl Harbor!”) and daily dramas (“Nab Three in Fed Red Scare”). So we don’t need places like One Stop News, the fluorescent-lit haven of glossy stock a few blocks from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, right at the gateway to George Washington University. It’s gone now, Friday its last day of business after 25 years, just like another anachronism, Tower Records, bit it in the same walk-in mall a few years ago. There will be no more musty smell of moldering wood pulp under the hard lighting at One Stop. No more lingering over the previously undiscovered, like Combat Aircraft or Straight Stuntin magazine. No more car mags, or bike books, or fashion and photo and music periodicals, in their profusion, all beckoning to be fondled and studied. No more yellowing souvenir copies of The Washington Post’s 2009 Inaugural Edition (“Obama Takes Oath,” $3.50). No more racks of dirty magazines in their shrink-wrapped shame (High Society is still published? Who knew?). No more hard copies of Le Figaro or the Daily Racing Form or the London Review of Books, either. Surely, we can stumble onto Farm Collector or Fortean Times (respectively, a magazine about antique tractors and a publication about weird stuff) on our iPads and Kindles. That is, if we know they exist, which we probably don’t because our Facebook friends haven’t mentioned them lately. And because there are fewer places like One Stop News, where they are right there in the open. On Friday, the young people, GWU students, blithely walked past the shop, heads buried in their phones. But the old-timers — lawyers and staff people from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters nearby — knew what they were losing. They came up to manager Brian Keaveny and owner Jim Kostoff all day and offered what sounded like condolences, or prayers for the dying. The regulars are of a certain age, the kind who grew up when information was manufactured and delivered via industrial processes that seem absurdly inefficient today. “I don’t know what I’m looking for when I come here,” said one of them, Dan Macy, a journalist and One Stop customer for the past decade. “And that’s the point.” Macy walked out of the store clutching a fat stack of print to his overcoat — the Wall Street Journal, Baltimore Sun, Guardian Weekly, the British Hello! magazine, a foreign edition of Esquire and more. Total sale: $81. He wasn’t part of the problem. The autopsy on One Stop, and places like it, is rather obvious, and almost mundane. “Death by a thousand cuts” is how Keaveny, an employee since he was a GWU student in 1990, puts it. Rent in the building, owned by the university, wasn’t cheap, though Keaveny wasn’t really complaining about that. Instead, he said, the business has changed, especially since everyone got a broadband connection about 10 years ago and the economy began tanking five years after that. The two trends closed like a vise on One Stop, he explained: When advertisers began chasing the digital mob, print publishers began raising their prices to make up the difference. Print sales tapered, and so began a self-perpetuating death cycle. Profit margins for retailers and magazine wholesalers deflated. Candy and cigarette sales aren’t what they used to be, either, he said. Every once in a while, there was a spike, a little flurry to inject some hope. Vanity Fair’s revelation of the identity of Watergate legend Deep Throat a few years ago was a hit. “A celebrity baby makes a difference” in newsstand sales, too, he said. Same with the new pope, Francis; guy’s a big seller. Keaveny knows that it’s easy to sentimentalize newsstands and their passing, and he tries hard not to do so. But he thinks back to black-and-white photos of Parisians or Londoners stopping at the train-station news vendor, or Americans clamoring for news of World War II on a city street corner. People are busier now, he notes, and besides, content is abundant and free online. “Everyone has a smartphone,” he said. He has one, too, plus an iPad, a Kindle and an iPod Touch. He looks at his shop, and this is about as emotional as he lets himself be: “No one comes here because they have to. They come here because they want to.” Yes, and the headphone generation will never know what it’s missing: A magazine cover on an iPhone screen will never look as good as it did on a newsstand.

SHANGHAI What Xi Jinping has accomplished over the past year doesn’t look like an old-fashioned Communist Party putsch. There aren’t red banners in the streets or blaring loudspeakers. But Chinese and Western analysts agree that Xi has achieved a remarkable consolidation of power. Since taking over as party chief in November 2012 and as president last March, Xi has transformed what was a colorless collective leadership into an aggressive instrument of control and reform. “Xi Jinping marks the arrival of a golden age for Chinese neo-authoritarianism,” commented Chinese scholar Xiao Gongqin in a November 2013 interview with the New York Times. The “princeling” son of a famous revolutionary and a fan of the movie “The Godfather,” Xi has used all the levers of power in this one-party society. He has launched an anti-corruption campaign that targeted top officials of Beijing’s state security bureau, the national oil company and other previously untouchable power centers. He has sought to impose top-down discipline on local party leaders who had grown rich and arrogant during China’s boom years. Like so much in modern China, Xi’s reforms are a study in contradiction. He proposes at once that market forces have a “decisive” role in the Chinese economy and that state ownership play a “leading” role. A Chinese official conceded during a conference here that “it’s obvious” there is a conflict between the two mandates, but both are attempts to “crack the nuts” that block change. “The old way is unsustainable,” this official told the conference, the Stockholm China Forum, which was organized by the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies and the German Marshall Fund of the United States (of which I am a trustee). But the official stressed that “we should not expect that reforms led by the Communist Party will weaken the party’s leadership.” Quite the opposite; Xi wants to enhance the party’s power. This consolidation of power has been so decisive that it’s easy to forget how wobbly China looked just 18 months ago. The vapid leadership of President Hu Jintao had been rocked by a scandal involving a charismatic regional party chief named Bo Xilai, whose wife had been arrested in a murder case. Corruption was said to be endemic among local party leaders and the military. Experts were asking whether Communist Party rule was unraveling. Xi’s transition looked messy at first. The 18th Party Congress, which was supposed to anoint him as Hu’s successor, was delayed, and Chinese sources said the agenda wasn’t set. Analysts weren’t sure how many seats would be filled on the Politburo’s Standing Committee or whether Hu would continue as head of the Central Military Commission. For two weeks in September 2012, Xi disappeared from public view, leading to wild rumors. When he finally took the stage as party leader in November 2012, he made an emphatic inaugural speech: “Inside the party, there are many problems that need to be addressed, especially the problems among party members and officials of corruption and taking bribes,” he said. He displaced Hu from the military commission, a sign of his strong power base. Soon after, Xi announced his “Chinese dream,” whose four attributes tellingly included a “strong China.” The Chinese leader accelerated his reform plans with a “Third Plenum” meeting last November. He created two special committees, a “leading small group” on economic reform and a “national security commission” to oversee China’s huge military and security bureaucracy. The plenum gave Xi even tighter control. The challenge for Xi is to oversee the maturation of China’s economy. The super-fast expansion of the past several decades is slowing, and China must now shift from explosive export-led growth to a more balanced, consumer-driven model. But some analysts see a hard landing ahead. “With rising wages, an aging population, declining productivity and an increasingly bloated and inefficient state-owned enterprise sector, China needs a new economic model to achieve the Chinese dream,” notes a recent report by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “Xi wants to show that he can save the Titanic,” a leading U.S. scholar told the Shanghai gathering. He likened Xi’s power putsch to Yuri Andropov’s attempt to reform the Soviet Communist Party in the early 1980s; that effort backfired during Mikhail Gorbachev’s “glasnost” era and the unraveling of the Soviet empire. Xi evidently thinks he can reform the party without destroying it. Indeed, one China expert told the conference that the party has instructed its members to watch a lengthy video chronicling the fall of the Soviet Union — lest they repeat the same mistakes. Xi’s tricky problem is simultaneous loosening and tightening. _Read more fromDavid Ignatius’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook._ **Read more about this topic:** David Ignatius: Pacific tensions The Post’s View: China turns the screws on dissidents by persecuting their families Fred Hiatt: Rocky waters between China and Japan could buffet America

_Rachel Maddow hosts MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” and writes a monthly column for The Post._ The major general “was visibly agitated about the long delay” at the airport, the witness said. “He appeared drunk and, in the public area, talked loudly about the importance of his position as commander of the only operational nuclear force in the world and that he saves the world from war every day.” The inspector general’s report quoted the witness as saying that upon arriving in Moscow, “again, he started in on the very loud discussions about being in charge of the only operationally deployed force and saving the world . . . and then he also started telling the story of about how he has the worst morale of any airmen in the Air Force.” Those drunken pronouncements, as well as some gallivanting with a couple of nice ladies he met in a Moscow bar, and something about a woman from a Russian cigar shop who wanted to stay up all night talking physics, were enough for the general in charge of the United States’ ­nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles to lose his job in October. Even though he’s gone (and so, hopefully, people in Russian hotels are no longer hearing about our morale issues in slurred shouts from the man in charge), the men and women responsible for America’s nuclear missiles are still in trouble when it comes to morale — and a lot more. The recent firings or demotions of top nuclear command flag officers, failed readiness tests, an investigation into widespread cheating on tests by launch officers, a major drug probe among those same officers — this is not the desired workplace record of the folks who are supposed to get a nuclear missile into the air within two minutes of the president’s launch order. The Pentagon just announced plans to shrink the Army to a size smaller than at any point since World War II; the “sequester” cuts that Congress voted for in 2011 demanded an even smaller force, but the Defense Department and the Obama administration are pushing back on that. They also want a larger Marine Corps than the sequester dictates and to increase the number of Special Forces — but the overall direction is still a smaller force. This is no surprise: As we wind down the longest war in American history — fought alongside another of our longest wars — no one reasonably expects that the U.S. military would stay, indefinitely, on the same footing. The Pentagon’s requested cuts would mean no more A-10 Warthogs, saying goodbye to our U-2 spy planes in favor of Global Hawk drones and 20 fewer Littoral Combat Ships for the Navy. And as for the Ground Combat Vehicle, the tank of the future — that future will have to wait. How is it, though, that we’re cutting all those things yet keeping the full complement of 1970s-era nuclear missiles in silos in Wyoming, North Dakota and Montana? Like the drunk general said, those intercontinental missiles are an operationally deployed nuclear force. They’re not in silos for storage; they are ready to fly. But do we really believe the general’s drunken boast that those hair-trigger missiles are saving the world from war every day? Even if there is a scenario in which a threat to the United States is best handled by us firing off hundreds of nuclear weapons, B-2 bombers and Trident submarines could handily launch such weapons at any attacker on the planet who is kind enough to provide us with a return address. As Vladi­mir Putin considers his options in Crimea, do we really think he feels his decisions are constrained by our nuclear weapons . . . but not the ones on U.S. military planes or submarines, only the ones underground in Montana? If we’re thinking about places to cut the budget without hurting national security and military readiness, our ground-based missiles — those missiles on the high plains — are blinking red for attention. Although no one has had to prevent an accidental missile launch by parking an armored vehicle on top of the silo doors since the 1980s (true story), we’re just not doing a great job handling the responsibility of those Minuteman 3s. And we’re not so much failing as succumbing to inevitability: In the absence of any realistic mission in which those missiles would be used, maintaining morale and 100 percent error-free rigor over decades is an almost existentially impossible challenge. The real failure here is political: Civilian decision-makers need to make the call about the overall U.S. security strategy and the prioritization of military spending. At a time of cuts and reorganization, when hard decisions must be made about what to save and what to let go, continuing to throw billions of dollars down those silos is a failure of accountability and a failure to be realistic about what kind of wars we might conceivably fight in the future. Initial reporting on the Pentagon’s proposed cuts described the goal of “a military capable of defeating any adversary, but too small for protracted foreign occupations.” After years of Iraq and Afghanistan, we don’t want protracted foreign occupations anymore, so we’re planning for a military future without them. Unless someone wants or expects an exchange of hundreds of nuclear-tipped land-based intercontinental missiles with Russia in our future, it is nonsense for us to keep planning for that, decade after decade, at such high cost and with so much risk. **Read more:** David Ignatius: Hagel’s budget priority — ‘defend the country’ Rachel Maddow: How George W. Bush failed the GOP Rachel Maddow: N.J. bridge scandal shows the value of local journalism

_Jim Hoagland is a contributing editor to The Post. His e-mail address [email protected]._ The thrill of witnessing angry Ukrainians chase a larcenous tyrant from his palace had brightened this leaden winter before yielding to war clouds gathering over Crimea. But the Kiev moment of liberation — long may it endure — represents a final shovel of earth on the grave of a client-state system the superpowers built for the Cold War. Ukraine’s revolt greatly accelerates the transformation of international relations begun by the fall of the Berlin Wall. No alliance or strategic friendship is immune to sudden and dramatic reversals as nations recalculate their interests and decide who can — and cannot — help achieve those interests. Vladimir Putin’s offer of a $15 billion payoff did not persuade Ukrainians to stay mired in the corruption and official lawlessness of the Moscow system. Not even the Russian president has enough rubles to buy off revolution on his doorstep. He will now test whether old-fashioned aggression can still turn the tide. In their five decades of open ideological competition, Washington and Moscow could justify the costs, financial and human, of propping up thieves and dictators who would vote for “us” and against “them” at the United Nations and otherwise tip the scales in the zero-sum power game of the Cold War. Today, what does Putin gain if a blood-stained Syrian regime prevails with his help? A broken state led by an internationally discredited ruler hated by the great majority of its citizens. That’s a heavier burden than the United States and Europe take on by “winning” in Ukraine — a financial basket case that needs billions in immediate aid. In the modern global economy, ­cost-benefit ratios must be considered even by strategists and generals. Money joins fear in cementing new international friendships and alliances — or in making them unworkable. That is already apparent in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has willingly replaced the United States as top paymaster for Egypt’s ruling military caste. And Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, Egypt’s president-in-waiting and a man seemingly immune to irony, recently went to Moscow to rattle the cup. It was as if Anwar Sadat had never expelled 20,000 Soviet military advisers in 1972 to clear the way for a brilliantly successful Egyptian switch to U.S. financial and military aid. Reversals of alliance, rare in the Cold War’s framework of mutually assured destruction, were far more frequent in the days when balance-of-power strategy ruled the globe. In Europe, alliances often were made to be broken at the right moment. Abrupt shifts by key nations, made for reasons of advantage or survival, could result in decisive victory. Alert world leaders are reacting to the great fluidity of power relationships today — a situation former secretary of state George P. Shultz calls “a world awash in change.” They eye allies nervously and flash hidden smiles at former foes. Chinese President Xi Jinping tried to engage President Obama in a dialogue about new power relationships when they met in California last year, but Obama showed no interest. Xi is expected to return to the theme of new Chinese-U.S. global cooperation with Obama in a nuclear security conference that both plan to attend in Holland in late March. Japanese fears that the United States can be tempted by Xi’s overtures help drive outside-the-box thinking in Tokyo, ranging from informal Japanese efforts to find new common ground with Russia on international issues to increasing defense spending and developing greater self-reliance in security. But the most immediate and neuralgic pivot point for U.S. allies is Iran. For differing reasons, countries as diverse as Israel, Saudi Arabia and France worry that successful nuclear negotiations could lead to a new Iranian-U.S. “axis” that would return Iran to its former position as a privileged U.S. partner. And Saudi Arabia poked a thumb in Uncle Sam’s eye by giving Lebanon $3 billion to buy French armaments. Such concerns may seem strange, or at least gravely premature, in current circumstances. But nations are folding unpredictability into their strategic calculations as never before and reacting now to expectations of upheaval to come. Obama critics assert that this is largely his doing — that his willing acceptance of U.S. retrenchment abroad has opened strategic vacuums into which hostile powers rush and out of which friends tumble. There is some truth in that view. Yet the real problem with the Obama White House is not that it is causing such monumental changes but that it is failing to adapt to them — failing to think through the consequences of “a world awash in change” and devise strategies to turn this change to U.S. advantage. It has allowed the United States to become a stumbling, status-quo power in a time of global upheaval. **Read more about this issue:** Jim Hoagland: A struggle for moral authority in Ukraine Anne Applebaum: Translating Ukrainian smears and stereotypes George F. Will: Is Ukraine the Cold War’s final episode? The Post’s View: The West must break Ukraine free from Mr. Putin’s grasp

Shortly before Christmas, security officers from Maryland Live Casino approached a young man — maybe _too_ young — who had been playing slots inside the 21-and-older-only property. They asked for identification, and he produced a Maine driver’s license that appeared to have been altered, according to a report from state gambling regulators. Police were called. Upon further questioning, the young man produced a Virginia driver’s license that showed him to be 18, the report says. A surveillance review revealed that the teenager had jumped over a wall separating Bobby Flay’s all-ages burger joint from Maryland Live’s verboten slot machines. He was evicted from the casino, and that was that. But under a bill that was unanimously approved by the Maryland state Senate this week, the 18-year-old gambler would be subject to a fine of up to $100 the first time he got caught in one of Maryland’s ­casinos. The fine would rise to a maximum of $500 for a second offense. For a third violation, he could be fined $1,000 and required to participate in mandatory gambling addiction treatment. Someone under 18 would be sent to juvenile court. After stalling in the General Assembly in each of the two years, legislation to hold underage gamblers accountable is generating considerable momentum in Annapolis. Following the Senate’s approval, sponsors of a similar bill in the House are optimistic that chamber will also pass legislation. The Senate version passed just as the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency was finalizing consent agreements with three casinos, which were penalized for underage violations. Under the agreements, signed Thursday by state regulators, Maryland Live will pay $1,000 for a New Year’s Eve incident; Hollywood Casino in Perry­ville will pay $5,000 for a ­mid-December incident; and the Casino at Ocean Downs will pay $10,000 for two incidents, in July and September. Last year, Maryland Live — the state’s largest casino — paid a $20,000 penalty, and Hollywood paid $10,000. Sen. James E. DeGrange Sr. (D-Anne Arundel), whose district includes Maryland Live, said his colleagues have come to realize that underage gamblers — and not just the casinos — should bear responsibility for their actions. “It’s no different than being under 21 and buying alcohol,” DeGrange said. “If they’re using a fake ID, they have some responsibility. . . . The casinos have been concerned that they’re taking the brunt.” Joe Cavilla, general manager of the Casino at Ocean Downs, near Ocean City, said the threat of civil fines would probably help reduce the number of underage people attempting to get past security “as people become aware of what the law is — and what the repercussions are.” A number of states, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Missouri, have statutes in place to penalize underage casino gamblers. For the past two years, Maryland’s bills have died in the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, of which DeGrange is a member. “I think we just needed more information,” he said. “Sometimes bills take a few years here.” Del. Kirill Reznik (D-Montgomery) said he is hopeful the House will move on the legislation, of which he is chief sponsor. “It’s actually a very important bill,” said Reznik, who sponsored the legislation the past two years as well. “The casinos are saying, ‘Please help us.’ ” Statewide, there were 47 underage violations in 2013 and 30 in 2012, according to state regulators. Some of the offenders have used fake or borrowed IDs, and others never had theirs checked. Several jumped over walls or ducked under stanchions. One was an infant whose mother “was ‘waved in’ even though she was breast feeding at the time,” according to a state compliance report. “Not all cases of people under the age of 21 on the floor are the same,” said Maryland Lottery Director Stephen Martino. “A nursing infant is no threat to gamble. We won’t levy a fine for that, but we mark it.” State regulators, Martino said, are most interested “in people under 21 who clearly want to get on the floor and gamble.” Keeping them out, he has said, is a pillar of the state’s responsible gambling efforts. “If word gets out that the state is taking this seriously, and that we’re going to hold those trying to get on the floor accountable,” he said, “it will have a measurable impact.”

THE WORST of the District’s homeless crisis may well be over for this year. Officials report a dramatic decline in the number of families entering emergency shelter, and hypothermia season is — we hope — nearing an end. So improved is the situation that D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) asked council members to hold off on his recent request for emergency powers to deal with shelter placements. That’s fine, but the issue should not be placed on the back burner. The District was caught flat-footed this year by record numbers of families entering shelter. Officials need to devise a better strategy before next winter — and before the next crisis. Mr. Gray on Feb. 20 submitted emergency legislation to the D.C Council to deal with the surge of homeless families that filled the city’s emergency shelter and overflowed to area motels and city recreation centers. The plan included enhanced efforts to help families move from shelters to housing, but reaction focused on a proposal to give the administration flexibility in providing shelter when there are alternatives for families, such as doubling up with relatives or friends. The council had previously rebuffed the proposal, and another contentious debate was in prospect before Mr. Gray asked the council to defer consideration pending further study. He told the council that fewer families sought shelter once hotel placements were discontinued in favor of emergency shelter at rec centers and that more families are exiting shelter. There is merit to the administration’s argument that the D.C. law granting an absolute right to shelter on freezing nights has had unintended consequences, but more than a tweak to the law is needed in dealing with the problem of homeless families. The city’s rapid rehousing approach needs to be shored up, and new strategies are needed to help families headed by young, single parents. The shortage of affordable housing for families remains a challenge. Given how politicized the issue became leading up to the April 1 mayoral primary, with Mr. Gray and his rivals on the council trading barbs and blame, there is scant chance of constructive work being done. We hope, though, that once the political dust settles, the mayor and council come up with a plan that better uses city resources to help families become self-sufficient. **Read more:** Colbert I. King: A homelessness cycle D.C. needs to break The Post’s View: D.C. needs a plan to deal with homelessness

California was lashed Friday by heavy rains that the parched state desperately needs, although with the soaking came traffic snarls, power outages and the threat of mudslides. Rainfall totals exceeded six inches in some places by midday, but the powerful Pacific storm did not put much of a dent in a drought that is among the worst in recent California history. The first waves of the storm drenched foothill communities east of Los Angeles that just weeks ago were menaced by a wildfire — and now face the threat of mudslides. Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for about 1,200 homes in the area. Small debris flows covered one street in Glendora, but no property damage occurred, police said. Forecasters expected the storm to last through Saturday in California before trundling east. **— Associated Press** Kerry Kennedy was acquitted Friday of drugged driving after she accidentally took a sleeping pill and then sideswiped a truck in a wild highway drive she said she didn’t remember. The six-person jury cleared Kennedy, 54, of driving while impaired, a misdemeanor. It had carried the potential for up to a year in jail, although that would have been unlikely for a first-time offender. Kennedy is a daughter of slain Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the former wife of New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D). **— Associated Press** A toxic mix of heroin and other drugs killed Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, New York City officials said Friday. A spokeswoman for the city’s medical examiner said Hoffman died from a mix of heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and benzodiazepines, which are drugs such as Xanax and Valium that are prescribed for anxiety, trouble sleeping and other problems. His death was ruled an accident. Law enforcement officials have said Hoffman, 46, was found Feb. 2 with a needle in his arm, and tests found heroin in samples from at least 50 packets in his Manhattan apartment. **— Associated Press** **— From news services**

THE PHYSICAL stresses of solitary confinement are bad enough. In the United States, conditions can include windowless cells, nearly inedible food served through door slots, extreme heat and cold and almost no time to exercise or wash. The psychological costs of extreme social isolation are worse; for many, in fact, they are unbearable. Solitary confinement can cause or exacerbate psychosis, hypertension, panic attacks, self-mutilation and suicide. Those who cope more effectively still may deteriorate in less obvious ways as their brains and bodies waste away. Tens of thousands of U.S. prisoners are living, some for years at a time, in such conditions. Damon Thibodeaux was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder. He now recounts that, near the beginning of his 15 years in solitary, he wanted to commit “suicide by state,” ending his legal fight and allowing Louisiana authorities to execute him. Isolation, he told a Senate committee Tuesday, kills “bit by bit, day by day.” “I thought it would be better to end my life as soon as I could and avoid the agony of life in solitary,” he said. His lawyer persuaded him to press his case, and he eventually prevailed. Separating prisoners from human contact is abusive in all but the most extreme circumstances. Yet, as Rick Raemisch, the head of Colorado’s Department of Corrections, told the committee, the practice is “incredibly overused,” often to punish minor infractions of prison rules. In Texas, inmates sent to solitary spend an average of four years there, reported Marc Levin of the conservative criminal justice reform group Right on Crime. Texas, though, is at least reviewing its practices. That might be because isolating prisoners is expensive — costing something like twice as much as keeping them in the general prison population. Or it might be because releasing psychologically damaged people from prison can produce disastrous results. Regardless of motive, cutting the use of solitary is the right thing to do. A few other states have made strides in recent years. New York just announced that it would restrict or eliminate solitary confinement for women, minors and the mentally ill, as well as adopt new guidelines on applying the punishment to others. Maine and Mississippi have drastically reduced the number of prisoners they keep in solitary; they report encouraging results. Mr. Raemisch recently shut Colorado’s administrative segregation facility, and Illinois closed its supermax prison. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday called on prison systems to follow New York’s lead. That’s the least prison authorities can do. To go further, Mr. Levin recommended eliminating rules that deny or restrict reading materials for isolated inmates, creating a range of punishments short of solitary that would more effectively and more humanely deter misbehavior and training prison staff to deal sensibly with prison conflicts and mentally ill inmates. Effectively applied, those measures would begin to reduce the number of people subjected to the hell of solitary without harming prison order. **Read more on this issue:** The Post’s View: Virginia takes a stand against solitary confinement George Will: When solitude is torture David Cole: Solitary can amount to a death sentence Colin Dayan: The inhumane world of solitary Sidney Rittenberg Sr.: A punishment that is not worthy of us

PRESIDENT OBAMA made an unscheduled appearance before the press at the White House Friday to warn Russia against a military intervention in Ukraine, which he said would be a “clear violation” of Russia’s commitments to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity as well as of international law. But the president made no mention of consequences other than international “condemnation” and unspecified “costs” — and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin is unlikely to be deterred by that. Mr. Obama also spoke in the conditional, referring to “reports of military movements.” But by late Friday it was clear that Russian forces were operating across Crimea, a southern region of Ukraine made up mostly of Russian speakers and that hosts Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Journalists broadcast images of Russian transport planes, helicopters and columns of armored personnel carriers penetrating the region. Ukraine’s acting president decried an “invasion.” The West responded with phone calls. The Kremlin said Mr. Putin spoke to British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Secretary of State John F. Kerry called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Mr. Lavrov protested that Russia was not violating its commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and Mr. Kerry was not ready to contradict him. “The question is whether or not what is happening now might be crossing a line in any way, and we’re going to be very careful in making our judgments about that,” he told reporters. Again, hardly likely to alter Mr. Putin’s calculations. Perhaps it was difficult for U.S. intelligence to discern Friday exactly what the Russian forces — some of which wore no identification — were doing. But Mr. Putin’s likely objective was not difficult to figure. He appears to be responding to Ukraine’s overthrow of its pro-Kremlin government last week with an old and ugly Russian tactic: provoking a separatist rebellion in a neighboring state, using its own troops when necessary. “Frozen conflicts” created by Moscow in the territory of the former Soviet Union already include the Transnistria region of Moldova and the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia invaded in 2008. For Moscow, the incursions have the benefit of establishing dominion over strategic strips of territory while destabilizing the countries to which they nominally belong. Stripping Ukraine of Crimea would be Mr. Putin’s way of putting his foot on the neck of the country’s fragile interim government, which is already facing a severe economic crisis. As Mr. Obama noted, it would also be a blatant violation of Russia’s commitments, including the 1994 Budapest memorandum, in which Moscow pledged to the United States and Britain that it would respect Ukraine’s independence and borders in exchange for the removal of its nuclear weapons. It could create another chronic trouble spot in Europe — particularly as Crimea’s population includes a large minority of Ukrainian speakers as well as Crimean Tatars, a Muslim group that rejects Russian rule. Mr. Obama and European leaders must act quickly to prevent Ukraine’s dismemberment. Missing from the president’s statement was a necessary first step: a demand that all Russian forces — regular and irregular — be withdrawn from all parts of Crimea outside the Sevastopol naval base and that Moscow recognize the authority of the Kiev government in the region. If Mr. Putin does not comply, Western leaders should make clear that Russia will pay a heavy price — not just in “condemnation,” but in economic and diplomatic sanctions. **Read more about this topic:** Anne Applebaum: The pressure is on Ukraine Jennifer Rubin: Obama let the Russian bear out Charles Krauthammer: Putin’s Ukraine gambit

The students at Kenmoor Middle School in Prince George’s County were about the same age as the young girl in the photo, taken more than 50 years ago. The picture, along with books and other mementos, sat on a table near E. Dianne Braddock, 69, as she spoke about growing up in the segregated South. But the girl in the photo, dressed in her Sunday best with white-rimmed glasses, a yellow hat and long, white gloves, was not Braddock. It was Carole Robertson, Braddock’s younger sister, who was one of four girls killed on Sept. 15, 1963, when a bomb ripped through the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. Twenty-two other churchgoers were injured. The girls’ deaths, at the hands of those fighting the end of racial segregation, was a pivotal moment in the nation’s civil rights movement. It galvanized the country and increased support for the cause, which led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Last year, Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Cynthia Wesley, who were 14 at the time, and Denise McNair, 11, were posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor. As Braddock spoke to the eighth-grade students at the Landover middle school this week, a bronze replica of the medal given to her family was nearby on a table. She said that when she met President Obama for the signing of the bill to recognize the girls, he told the families: “Thank you on behalf of a grateful nation.” The students — who watched the Oscar-nominated Spike Lee documentary “4 Little Girls” — sat in rapt attention as Braddock, a retired county principal, talked about how her brother couldn’t hang out with his friends at night because their parents worried that he might get stopped by the “mean white people” and “no one would ever see [him] again.” She shared how her mother, Alpha Robertson, a teacher, couldn’t try on clothes at the department store downtown or eat at the store’s lunch counter. And then she talked about how Carole Robertson and her friends were in the church restroom when a bomb thrown from a passing car exploded. One survivor lost her eye in the blast and still has charred glass in her body, she told the students. Some of them gasped. “I didn’t know what all these people went through during that time,” said Lola Fatinikun, 14, of Landover. “It was sad and unfair.” Melvina Barton, the media specialist who organized the presentation, said she wanted the students to not only explore the nation’s past but to also think about the progress that has been made and how much more needs to be done. That message resonated with Wesley Carter, 14, of Bowie: “We need to know our history and how privileged we are.” When Braddock asked the students about the strides made by African Americans, they said there have been gains but not enough. For example, Caleb Zuk, 13, of Riverdale Park said he heard that some states were trying to restrict African Americans from voting, similar to what happened in the 1960s. “They are asking people to present an ID when you’re voting,” he said. Asked whether young black men are targets of racial injustice, Wesley cited the example of Trayvon Martin, who was killed in a February 2012 altercation in Florida that many believed was fueled by racist stereotypes. The man who shot him, George Zimmerman, was acquitted after a trial last year. “We have an example in Trayvon Martin,” Wesley said. “All he was doing was walking down the street. That was another young man who could have done something great with his life, but it was ended because of somebody’s ignorance.” The students applauded his remarks, and Braddock said she couldn’t have given a better answer.

As Comcast pushes for approval of a $45 billion merger that would cement its dominance of the cable industry, the company stands to benefit from ties across Washington that it has built through contributions to think tanks, civil rights groups, and other organizations. Comcast’s prolific charitable spending, together with top-level political connections, a roster of executives who have held key jobs in government, and one of the biggest lobbying operations in the city, have helped establish its status as one of the most influential companies in Washington. The company’s reach across the capital also illustrates the many tools beyond traditional lobbying that corporations have at their disposal as they seek to influence policymakers. “They’ve spread a lot of money around town to a lot of places, just for moments like this,” said Craig Aaron, president of Free Press, a consumer advocacy group that opposes the Time Warner Cable merger. At a minimum, Comcast could encourage the deal’s critics to sit out the debate, he said. “At best, they’ve got a whole network of people advocating for them.” The Comcast Foundation gave out just over $16 million in grants in 2012, the most recent year for which tax documents are available. “It’s an important corporate responsibility to participate in making the communities where we do business healthy and vibrant,” said David Cohen, the company’s government relations chief. Comcast officials said most of the foundation’s giving has little to do with Washington but reflects a long-term commitment to civil rights, education and leadership development. That kind of corporate largesse proved useful the last time Comcast was trying to win regulatory approval for a major transaction. As the Federal Communications Commission was weighing Comcast’s takeover of NBC Universal in 2010, members of Congress asked about its outreach to minorities. In a response submitted to the agency, attorneys for Comcast said the company and its foundation had given more than $1.8 billion in cash and in-kind support to community organizations over the previous nine years. And, they said, more than 200 of Comcast’s “community partners” had filed letters supporting the takeover, with most citing Comcast’s support of the communities it serves. Many of the foundation’s grants are to small, local groups in the 39 states where Comcast does business. But others have a resonance in Washington. In 2012, for instance, it gave $385,000 to the National Council of La Raza, a major Hispanic civil rights group; $250,000 to the National Urban League; $50,000 to the Ford’s Theatre Society (the fourth installment of a five-year, $250,000 grant); and $5,000 to the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society. The pending deal, announced Feb. 13, will be reviewed by the FCC and by antitrust officials at either the Justice Department or the Federal Trade Commission, and Comcast said it expects to win approval in nine to 12 months. The combined company would have 33 million cable subscribers and nearly as many broadband users, as well as content produced by NBC Universal, prompting worries that it will have huge power in determining what programs reach consumers. Weeks before the deal was announced, billboards were plastered across Washington area Metro stations, drawing attention to Comcast’s efforts to bridge the digital divide by providing Internet access to low-income communities. And since November, the company has been sponsoring programming on the city’s main public radio station, WAMU (88.5 FM). Contributions to think tanks are also part of the Washington strategy. They are intended to ensure that Comcast is “involved in the public policy discussions that affect the company,” said Sena Fitzmaurice, a spokesperson for the cable giant. “Shoe leather lobbying gets you only so far,” said Michael Meehan, president of VennSquared Communications, who helps companies manage their Washington messages. “Then it’s think tanks that write white papers, and white papers are taken by shoe-leather lobbyists into the congressional offices.” Comcast “has worked with most of the major think tanks in town who are interested in communications issues,” including the Aspen Institute, the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute, Fitzmaurice said, declining to provide further details. Comcast, its affiliates and employees have also been active political donors to both parties, giving $6.5 million in the 2012 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Cohen, a longtime Democratic insider who served as chief of staff to former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell (D), is Comcast’s best known advocate in Washington. He attended the February White House state dinner for French President François Hollande just two days before the deal was announced. “To effectively advocate for the company, you need to have a presence, you need to have relationships, and you need to participate in the fabric of what goes on in Washington,” Cohen said. Cohen arrived at Comcast about the time of its takeover of AT&T Broadband, in 2002, and is credited with building a bigger Washington team as the company moved into new geographic areas and new lines of business. In the decade since, Comcast’s Washington lobbying budget has skyrocketed, from $2.4 million in 2003 to $18.8 million in 2013, according to federal disclosure reports. It ranked 7th in a year-end tally of spending on federal lobbying by the Center for Responsive Politics, with most of the other top spots held by trade associations, including the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, which counts Comcast as a member. (Northrop Grumman, a top defense contractor, was the only individual company that spent more, at $20.6 million.) Comcast counts nearly 100 lobbyists working at outside firms, including four former members of Congress and a lawyer who worked on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold a March 26 hearing on the consumer impact of the deal. ****Lobbyists for Time Warner Cable, which last year reported more than $8 million in lobbying spending, are also working on the merger. Cohen’s in-house hires include Melissa Maxfield, who was a top political aide to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and now leads the company’s congressional lobbying team, and Meredith Attwell Baker, who, as an FCC commissioner, voted to approve the acquisition of NBC Universal, months before she moved to Comcast. As Free Press’s Aaron put it, “In recent years, no one has been better at organizing an onslaught to push forward a deal that they want.”

While Russia flexes its military might at its Black Sea naval base in Crimea, Moscow has another weapon that it has wielded against Ukraine in the past: natural gas supplies. Russia provides more than half of Ukraine’s natural-gas needs and since 2006 has twice curtailed supplies in disputes over politics, price and late payments. Those supply cuts rattled countries across Europe that depend on the Russian pipelines that run through Ukraine. But changes in the global trade in natural gas have blunted Moscow’s weapon, forcing the Russian pipeline monopoly Gazprom to cut prices worldwide and giving Ukraine slightly more bargaining power. The boom in U.S. shale gas has left gas-exporting countries shopping for other customers. Europe, as it adds terminals to handle liquefied natural gas, will be able to offset its own declining production with supplies from countries such as Qatar. And in 2012, Norway’s Statoil sold more gas to other European nations than Russia’s Gazprom. “Since the Russian supply cuts in 2006 and 2009, the tables have totally turned,” said Anders Aslund, a fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics who has advised Russia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Aslund said Ukraine once rivaled Germany as Gazprom’s biggest customer. Now, he said, “Gazprom’s challenge is to stay in the Ukrainian market.” In December, Gazprom said it would discount the price paid by Ukraine, cutting it from about $11.50 per thousand cubic feet to $8.10. But that only brought Ukraine’s prices roughly in line with those being paid in other parts of Europe. Gazprom said it would review the price every quarter, meaning a new reset is possible at the end of March. As clunky Soviet-era factories and mines have become more efficient or gone out of business, Ukraine’s domestic gas consumption has dropped nearly 40 percent over the past five years, cutting its imports from Russia in half, according to a report by Sberbank Investment Research. Domestic consumption might drop further if Ukraine trims the generous subsidies it gives households using natural gas, although so few households are paying their bills that it might not matter. “People will go from not paying the lower price to not paying the higher price,” said Thane Gustafson, senior director of Russian energy for the consulting firm IHS CERA. The gas subsidies and delinquent payments lie at the center of Ukraine’s economic problems and tension with Moscow. Even if residential customers paid up, the Ukrainian state energy company, Naftogaz, would lose money on those sales. That contributes to its failure to keep up payments to Gazprom, which on Feb. 3 said Naftogaz owed $3.3 billion for deliveries over the previous 13 months. Naftogaz’s losses will grow as it sells in the battered local currency and buys gas priced in dollars, Sberbank noted. “An inefficient and opaque energy sector continues to weigh heavily on public finances and the economy,” the International Monetary Fund said, noting that energy subsidies reached 7.5 percent of Ukraine’s GDP in 2012. “The very low tariffs for residential gas and district heating cover only a fraction of economic costs and encourage one of the highest energy consumption levels in Europe,” the IMF said in December. In the long run, Ukraine could boost domestic production. Late last year, it signed shale gas accords with Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell; each will invest $350 million in five-year exploration programs and $10 billion for development in the western part of the country, Ukrainian officials have said. However, Chevron, whose block covers 1.6 million acres, said drilling hasn’t started. It still needs to iron out an operating agreement with its partner, the mostly state-owned firm Nadra Oles’ka, said Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson. The ousted government had also been negotiating with a group led by Exxon Mobil, which wants to explore for oil and gas in a deep-water block in the Black Sea. In January, as protesters thronged the square in the heart of Kiev, Kevin Biddle, Exxon Mobil’s vice president for Europe, traveled to the city to negotiate. Now, the upheaval of the past two weeks has thrown Ukraine’s gas strategy into greater confusion. “There is no government and there are no agencies to do business with,” said Simon Pirani, senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. “How high up the list of priorities it is is anyone’s guess.” “We remain hopeful that negotiations . . . can resume at the appropriate time,” Exxon Mobil spokesman Patrick McGinn said. Even if the deals with foreign companies advance, Ukraine will need to import about half of its gas needs, meaning that relations with Gazprom remain important. In past years, Russia tied its natural gas prices to crude oil prices, but as gas supplies grew more plentiful and crude oil prices soared, customers resisted. In 2012, many European industrial users and power plants switched to coal, and Russia agreed to renegotiate. The link between gas and oil prices has been severed for about half of Russia’s gas sales. Gazprom also agreed to eliminate contract clauses that said a country such as Germany could reship Russian gas only with Gazprom’s approval. As a result, Ukraine ended up paying more than Gazprom’s customers in Germany, and last year Ukraine imported small quantities of natural gas from Germany and Hungary through pipelines in Slovakia and Poland, experts say. Germany buys gas from a variety of countries, but rerouted Russian gas has effectively been undercutting other Russian gas. “Ukraine has reduced its consumption of Russian gas, which puts them in a less vulnerable situation. Also the hardest part of winter is over. And there is a fair amount [of gas] in storage,” said a senior Obama administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “Ukraine is obviously still in a precarious situation,” he added, “though very different from what it was in 2009.” Related: WorldViews: A quick look at Crimea’s complicated past More on tensions in Ukraine

In its final test before arriving in Brazil, defending World Cup champion Spain will play a friendly against El Salvador at FedEx Field as part of a June 7 doubleheader also featuring an MLS match between D.C. United and the Columbus Crew. Spain will practice at an undisclosed location in the Washington area for several days before facing the Salvadorans in the opening match at the Redskins’ stadium in Landover. Kickoff times have not been finalized, but in order to accommodate European TV, the Spain game will begin in the afternoon. (U.S. television coverage of both matches is also pending.) Several World Cup-bound teams haven chosen the United States for final preparations because of a similar time zone to Brazil, abundant training facilities and the opportunity to play competitive matches. In terms of talent, El Salvador is not nearly on par with Spain but was chosen as the opponent because of its passionate following among expatriates in the Washington area. The Salvadoran squad, stung by a match-fixing scandal last year, typically draws considerable crowds for annual friendlies at RFK Stadium. Organizers also announced Friday that Honduras, which qualified for the World Cup, will play Turkey on May 29 at RFK Stadium — an event that will help RFK compensate for lost revenue from United moving the June 7 match to FedEx. Andy Najar, a former United standout from Edison High who now plays for Anderlecht in Belgium, is expected to make Honduras’s World Cup roster. When the possibility of joining forces with the Spain-El Salvador match arose, United officials entered into talks with the promoters, Soccer United Marketing (an MLS entity), and the Redskins. “We have an opportunity to create an exciting soccer experience in the nation’s capital with Spain getting ready for the World Cup, the Salvador community involved and our game,” said Michael Williamson, United’s outgoing chief operating officer. “It’s going to be fantastic for soccer. And it exposes our club to the general market as well.” United has played two friendlies at FedEx Field — against Chelsea in 2005 and Real Madrid in 2009 — but never a league match. Had United officials not agreed to the doubleheader, they faced the prospects of competing with the Spain match for spectators on the same day, if not the same time. The June 7 arrangement will cause ticketing complications for United season ticket holders. The Spain match will serve as the “special event” in the 18-game package (17 regular season matches, plus one extra game). Those fans will need to apply both the Crew and special event ticket toward the doubleheader. If they are unable, or unwilling, to attend the Spain game, they cannot use the special event ticket for a future non-league game this year, such as the CONCACAF Champions League. United might consolidate the two required tickets into one new pass or invalidate the bar code on one of them. At FedEx, United season ticket holders will receive seats of an equivalent location and pricing category, Williamson said. The club plans to contact those fans in the coming weeks. It remains unclear whether United season ticket holders will have priority access to additional tickets for the doubleheader. Tickets will go on sale to the general public March 17. (One ticket gains admission to both games.) The doubleheader isn’t the only soccer event coming to FedEx this summer: On July 29, Manchester United will face Inter Milan as part of the International Champions Cup, an eight-team tournament featuring European clubs in preseason. **United notes:** The starting time of United’s April 12 match vs. the New York Red Bulls at RFK Stadium has been changed to 7 p.m. The original time was 2:30.NBC Sports Network will no longer provide coverage. Local TV for this match — as well as the entire season — has not been finalized. . . . Goalkeeper Joe Willis, midfielder Collin Martin and midfielder-forward Christiano Francois reported to the third-division Richmond Kickers for Saturday’s friendly against the University of Maryland. They will rejoin United in Washington next week. Defender Jalen Robinson had been scheduled to fly to Richmond as well but pulled a hamstring in Wednesday’s Carolina Challenge Cup match vs. the Charleston Battery United (1-0-1) will face the Seattle Sounders (1-0-1) for the Charleston tournament championship Saturday at 5 p.m. (the game will be streamed live on United’s Web site).

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — During the 75-mile ride from Viera before his first game in a Washington Nationals uniform, Manager Matt Williams was far from anxious. Mark Weidemaier, the man in charge of the team’s defense and the only coach Williams brought with him from his previous job with the Arizona Diamondbacks, began to doze off in a nearby seat on one of the team’s chartered buses. Williams grabbed his cellphone, hoping to snap a photo of Weidemaier sleeping so he could post it on the board in the coaches’ office. “We have a little fun,” Williams said, smiling. Twice, however, Weidemaier opened his eyes in time to spoil Williams’s plan. “I knew it was coming,” Weidemaier said. “He’ll get me eventually.” A few hours later, Williams stood at the edge of the infield dirt and watched Weidemaier take the team through infield drills before its first Grapefruit League game against the New York Mets, an example of the repetition-heavy spring training he has led so far. Williams then threw batting practice to the first group of starters and hit groundballs with a fungo bat to Danny Espinosa. At 1:04 p.m., Williams presented his first lineup card as Nationals manager, walking to home plate to meet Mets Manager Terry Collins and the umpires. A few minutes later, he was at one edge of the dugout surrounded by coaches leading the Nationals to a 5-4 win. And at 4:03 p.m., he joined the celebratory line of high-fives in the infield. “It was fun,” Williams said. For his first spring training game as manager, Williams brought a mixed contingent of established players and those fighting for a spot or to make an impression. Ryan Zimmerman, Adam LaRoche, Ian Desmond and Scott Hairston started and gave way to Steven Souza, Michael Taylor, Jamey Carroll and Jeff Kobernus. Taylor Jordan, competing for the last spot in the rotation, started and tossed two strong, scoreless innings before turning the ball over to prospect A.J. Cole, who spread three hits but no runs over the next two innings. From his spot in the dugout, Williams watched, evaluated and called for the substitutions. And when he saw Desmond steal a base, Kobernus taking second on a ball in the dirt and Taylor last long enough in a rundown between third and home to allow Souza to move into scoring position, Williams smiled. He has stressed aggressive base running, defense and attention to detail in camp. “That’s the kind of way we want to go about doing it,” he said. “There’ll be times when the ball is flying out of the ballpark and it’s going to be fun to just sit there and hit. But we’re gonna have to play that way, too. That’s gratifying. Regardless of win or loss, that’s the way we gotta play.” Williams wasn’t nervous for his first major league spring training game as manager because he is a compulsive planner. He only worried about getting all the players on the trip into the game, and he managed to squeeze 26 players in. “He’s been serious and pays attention to all the little details,” outfielder Nate McLouth said of Williams. “Not sure if that makes sense — serious and jokes around. But he does both. It’s been a lot of fun.” “He’s quiet, but he tries to get confidence in us,” catcher Wilson Ramos added. “That’s what we need: to feel confidence in the dugout and in the field. And that’s what we need from the manager.” During the past two weeks of workouts, Williams even had a dry run of the game-day dugout practices. He and bench coach Randy Knorr sat in the conference room in the bowels of Space Coast Stadium and talked about where each would stand in the dugout during games to watch the infielders and outfielders and how to call signs. But one detail remained undecided: Where would Williams be in the dugout? Bullpen coach Matt LeCroy asked Williams earlier whether he was a dugout pacer, but Williams wasn’t sure. On Friday, he was mostly still. He hung over the portion of the railing closest to the helmets and bats and the clubhouse tunnel. He reached for the lineup card in his back pocket often. After a player entered the dugout following a run, he joined the chorus of fist pumps and high-fives. He was relaxed and observant. “He does a good job of being the same guy every day,” Zimmerman said. In the top of the ninth, when the Nationals took the lead on a Taylor run-scoring triple, Williams gave signs to third base coach Bobby Henley. If Koyie Hill had reached base in the inning, Williams was planning to pinch-run speedy outfielder Brian Goodwin. The manager enjoyed the strategizing. “I was pretty calm standing there,” he said. “I got the chance to work with Bobby a little bit on some signs. It was good. Good day all around.” After the game, Williams met with reporters in the visiting manager’s office in the clubhouse. Only a handful of players remained in the clubhouse, mostly minor leaguers, packing up their belongings. The final bus for Viera left at 4:35 p.m. Just outside, Knorr, still mostly in uniform, walked toward the bus but stopped to offer his assessment of Williams. “He was good,” Knorr said. “I think maybe butterflies at the beginning, but he was fine during the game. He was fine the whole time. He was excited.” But would Knorr try to sleep on the bus back home? “I don’t sleep on the bus,” he said. Why not? “Because of Matt.” More on the Nationals: Spring training box: Nationals 5, Mets 4 Jordan pitches well, Taylor hits go-ahead triple Fister will get the start Sunday Nats are safe after nearby gunman scare in Viera Ryan Zimmerman on fatherhood

A leading Bitcoin exchange completed its weeks-long collapse Friday with a public apology and a bankruptcy filing, fueling calls for regulators to rein in the innovative virtual currency worth billions of dollars. The spectacular rise and fall of the marketplace, called Mt. Gox, has played out as something of a morality tale for those skeptical that a currency created on computers and untethered from regulatory structures or the full faith and credit of an issuing nation can be made secure enough for routine transactions. Yet as the debate raged over Bitcoin’s fate, there was growing consensus that virtual currencies — if not this particular one — would soon become irreplaceable features of the world’s financial system by satisfying a widespread demand for high-tech, low-cost ways to transfer money beyond the reach of most forms of government tracking. Losses at Mt. Gox have been put at more than $400 million, and experts say it’s not clear whether that money was stolen by criminals or somehow mishandled by the operators of the exchange. Company officials have blamed a glitch in the transaction software that, they say, allowed hackers to siphon away money undetected. “What’s fascinating and disturbing about the bankruptcy is the size of the loss,” said Mark Williams, a former Federal Reserve official who teaches finance at Boston University. “There’s no legal recourse. There’s no financial system. . . . In essence, if a criminal gets the coin, the criminal owns the coin.” The bankruptcy of Mt. Gox, one of the first major Bitcoin exchanges, surprised few by the time it arrived on Friday at a court in Tokyo, where the company was based. It had a history of trouble and had stopped functioning normally several weeks ago. Many Bitcoin enthusiasts said its demise will lead to a more-durable system for trading the virtual currency as other major exchanges around the world grow stronger. Demands for government regulation are the biggest threat to Bitcoin, say supporters. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) went even further, calling for a ban on Bitcoin this week as news spread of Mt. Gox’s troubles. “The sooner that Mt. Gox goes away, the better for Bitcoin,” said Barry Silbert, chief executive of SecondMarket, which operates an investment fund for owners of bitcoins. “If you look at the short history of Bitcoin, there’s been a series of bubbles and busts, there’s been a series of disruptions, there have been hacks, there have been thefts. And really, after every single event, Bitcoin has emerged stronger.” Bitcoin was not the first virtual currency, but it has gained uncommonly widespread acceptance since its invention by an anonymous developer in 2009. The creation of individual bitcoins — called “mining” in homage to the days when all currency was made of metal dug from the earth — involves computers using complex algorithms. The currency won support initially among technology enthusiasts and speculators but gradually was adopted by those wanting to gamble or buy illicit goods on online marketplaces. When federal authorities shut down Silk Road, one such marketplace, in October and arrested its alleged founder, they seized 26,000 bitcoins worth about $3.6 million, sending the value of the currency plunging. It has recovered since then, as it has several times after setbacks, including previous ones involving Mt. Gox. Some retailers, such as Overstock. com, began accepting bitcoins as payment in what supporters saw as a move toward the inevitable acceptance of the virtual currency. Bitcoin ATMs appeared in some cities, making purchase of the currency easier. Yet bitcoins remained awkward to buy and trade, especially compared with credit cards. People wanting to buy bitcoins typically had to order them from far-flung exchanges. Transfers were irreversible, meaning people who bought a product or service with a bitcoin had little recourse if they regretted the purchase or felt defrauded. Regulators worldwide were reluctant to police transactions involving a currency they didn’t issue. China banned bitcoins outright amid concerns about rampant speculation. Japanese regulators, located closest to Mt. Gox’s headquarters, were more typical in tolerating the exchange but doing nothing to protect against abuses. “No one recognizes them as a real currency,” Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso told reporters on Friday. “I expected such a thing to collapse.” Trading at Mt. Gox was interrupted several times in recent years, and last year users complained of being unable to trade bitcoins for dollars — a core function of exchanges. The situation turned far worse Feb. 7, when Mt. Gox suspended all withdrawals because of what it called a software bug. The exchange never fully resumed operations. The company has blamed its problems on a glitch called “transaction malleability” in which users can trick the software into making a withdrawal twice. Many outside experts have said that Mt. Gox lacked the accounting systems to spot fraud and keep its books balanced. Chief executive Mark Karpeles told reporters Friday that among the 850,000 bitcoins missing from Mt. Gox are 100,000 that belonged to the company and were valued at more than $50 million. “I am sorry for the troubles I have caused all the people,” he said in court in Tokyo. The company’s descriptions of its problems has drawn skepticism from many Bitcoin supporters, who say it will take independent auditors months to determine what happened to the money missing from Mt. Gox. “At best, it was very, very poorly managed,” said Nicolas Christin, a security researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. “That doesn’t mean that the entire monetary system needs to be thrown out.” Although governments have long worried about the difficulty in tracking bitcoins, privacy advocates have made the opposite complaint — that it’s too easy to determine who owns them. Every transaction is recorded in an online register that’s publicly available. Also, many exchanges operate under laws requiring that those who buy bitcoins verify their identities. Some other virtual currencies are entirely anonymous. “The thing that will kill Bitcoin is a better virtual currency, or hundreds of other better virtual currencies,” said Ryan Lackey, a computer security expert in San Francisco. Brian Fung contributed to this report. Related: Mt. Gox is bankrupt. But Bitcoin is going to be OK. "The sooner Mt. Gox goes away, the better for Bitcoin" Singletary: Investing in Bitcoin has a dangerous flip side _Follow The Post’s new tech blog,The Switch, where technology and policy connect._

In July 1999, Hillary Rodham Clinton trekked to Upstate New York to join retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan at his farm and officially launch her campaign to replace him. On the eve of the big kickoff, adviser Mandy Grunwald wrote the first lady a memo offering her “a few style pointers.” Keep your tone conversational, Grunwald wrote, “chatty, intimate, informal.” Find moments for humor. Don’t be defensive and don’t raise your voice. For years, you’ve been saying, “My husband did X,” but this moment is about you, so talk about what you’ve done. “Be careful to ‘be real.’ ” The Grunwald memo is part of a cache of confidential communications among Clinton and her political image-makers released to the public Friday, detailing the strategic machinations behind her evolution from a political spouse to a political leader in her own right. The secret memos open a rare window into the meticulous and intense efforts to manage Clinton’s public image during her and President Bill Clinton’s tumultuous eight years in office. They describe attempts to cultivate influential journalists who could become “fans” or “Clinton surrogates.” They also detail a push to leverage the first lady’s official travel and agenda to generate positive news media coverage, softening her image in the run-up to Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign. The documents are part of nearly 4,000 pages of internal communications released Friday by the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Ark., which also include new details about White House decisions on health-care policy and an array of national security issues.  The records show that in 1993, Clinton said at a private meeting of Democratic lawmakers that a GOP proposal for an individual health insurance mandate — a general approach that she would later embrace — would send “shock waves” through the public. An adviser also worried in a 1994 memo that the administration was “over-promising” by telling people they would be able to pick the doctor and health-care plan of their choice, an issue that has flared anew during the implementation of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Friday’s release was the first of several batches of Clinton records — totaling about 25,000 pages — expected to be made public in the next two weeks. An additional 7,000 to 8,000 pages could be released in coming months. The National Archives and Records Administration, which oversees the library, said it had withheld the documents for the first 12 years after Clinton left office because they had been exempt from disclosure under the Presidential Records Act. Since her years as first lady, Clinton has served as a U.S. senator from New York and as Obama’s first secretary of state, both prominent positions that have dramatically remade her image. She is now the leading contender to be the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, with strong approval ratings among the public. But during the 1990s, Clinton was a highly divisive figure, eliciting sharp criticism from Republicans who saw her as being too involved in policymaking on health care and other issues. The new documents show that her handlers at the time were keenly focused on shaping, and improving, her public image since the earliest years of her husband’s administration. In 1995, for example, Clinton’s press secretary, Lisa Caputo, wrote that the Clintons’ 20th wedding anniversary that year provided “a wonderful opportunity for Hillary” to bolster her political standing. She suggested throwing “a big party” and releasing a photo spread of the occasion for People magazine, which could later be used as part of “a nice mail piece” for voters. Caputo was a central figure in “Hillaryland” — the first lady’s inner circle of aides — and was a senior adviser on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. She appears frequently in the documents as the first lady’s top image maven. In August 1995, Caputo wrote a six-page memo to Maggie Williams, the first lady’s chief of staff, with 16 suggestions to rehabilitate their boss’s image. It was a political low point for the Clintons following the Republican takeover of Congress and the defeat of health-care reform. One idea was for Clinton to appear in an episode of “Home Improvement,” ABC’s hit family sitcom featuring Tim Allen. “Although I have some concerns that it diminishes the role of First Lady by going on a tv sitcom, it is probably worth weighing it against what we believe we might be able to gain by such an appearance politically and image-wise,” Caputo wrote. Caputo also said that Clinton should harness the Internet — then in its infancy as a widespread medium and referenced by Caputo as only “Internet,” without “the.” Caputo detailed plans to feature Clinton in historical contexts to help soften her image, including by celebrating the birthday of Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Clinton considered a personal hero. This strategy, Caputo wrote, could make Clinton “seem less extreme.” Clinton has long had an aversion to the Washington press corps, and her advisers developed strategies to overcome that. One idea was for Clinton to meet monthly with the editors of women’s magazines, which could “turn the editors into Clinton surrogates.” Caputo suggested that senior aides take White House correspondents to lunch or dinner and share “wonderful Hillary anecdotes” and disabuse them of the notion of “Hillary being in a bunker mentality.” For example, Caputo wrote, adviser Lissa Muscatine liked telling reporters that Clinton loves when Muscatine’s twin children visit the office. Caputo endorsed a proposal from another adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, for Clinton to host off-the-record dinners with “opinion makers” who are not part of the “mainstream New York media” but rather are “people whom the New York Times respects intellectually.” The objective was to “help inoculate or diffuse any negatives that may arise in the mainstream press.” Among those suggested were Robert S. Silvers, editor of the New York Review of Books; Victor Navasky, then the editor of the Nation; and Francis FitzGerald, a prominent writer. Clinton’s advisers also looked for ways to use the first lady’s official travels for political gain. In preparation for a 1995 women’s conference in Beijing, Caputo briefed Clinton on the journalists traveling with the first lady, describing which ones she considered “fans,” “fair” or “aggressive.” Caputo also wrote that the event would give Clinton “good political mileage”; to this day, Clinton regularly refers to the address she gave at the historic conference. In 1999, as Clinton prepared to step out from her husband’s shadow and face the New York press corps as a first-time candidate, Grunwald dashed off a memo with eight “style pointers.” “The press is obviously watching to see if they can make you uncomfortable or testy,” Grunwald wrote. “Even on the annoying questions, give relaxed answers.” She advised Clinton to be prepared for two questions: how her record on health care — “which was a fiasco” — stacked up against her likely opponent, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R), and, “Have you ever used drugs?” Grunwald reminded Clinton to try to steer the discussion to the message she wants to deliver. “You have a tendency to answer just the question asked,” she wrote. “That’s good manners, but bad politics.”

**Saturday, 8 to 10:30 a.m.:** All-you-can-eat monthly community pancake breakfast with orange whole-wheat and regular pancakes. Proceeds benefit Red Bird Missionary Conference in Eastern Kentucky and the St. Paul’s Hunger Ministry. St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 10401 Armory Ave., Kensington. $6.50; $2 for ages 11 and younger; $18 family maximum. 301-933-7933. **Saturday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.:** Annual rummage sale, featuring furniture, clothing, housewares, books, toys and more. Church of the Little Flower, 5607 Massachusetts Ave., Bethesda. 301-320-4538. www.lfparish.org. **Saturdays, 12:30 p.m.:** Weekly carillon recital by Edward M. Nassor. Washington National Cathedral, Bishop’s Garden area, Wisconsin and Massachusetts avenues NW. Free. 202-537-6200 or www.nationalcathedral.org. **Saturday, 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, 2 p.m.:** Catholic University students will perform Stephen Schwartz’s “Godspell.” Catholic University, Ward Recital Hall, 620 Michigan Ave. NE. $20; seniors and students, $10; ages 9 and younger, free. 202-319-5416. http://music.cua.edu. **Sunday, 10 a.m.:** Gigi Bradford, chair of the Folger Shakespeare Library Poetry Board and a member of the Emily Dickinson Museum’s Board of Governors, discusses “Lectio Divina: Reading with the Heart.” St. John’s Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, 1525 H St. NW. Free. 202-347-8766 or www.stjohns- dc.org/. **Sunday, 10:10 a.m.:** Salute the Cathedral Scholars and the program that has hosted select high-achieving students from D.C. public high schools participating in rigorous academics at St. Albans School. During each Sunday in March, you will hear about students of the Class of 2014. They will talk about their experiences and the care packages given by the congregation. Washington National Cathedral, Front Nave, Wisconsin and Massachusetts avenues NW. Free. 202-537-6200 or www.nationalcathedral.org. **Sunday, 10:15 a.m.:** World Mission Sunday honors Christ Church’s relationships around the world, with special focus on civil war-torn South Sudan, Honduras, the medical team at Mengo Hospital in Uganda and the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. The guest preacher will be Richard Parkins, retired director of Episcopal Migration Ministries. Parishioner Russ Randle will provide an update on South Sudan. Historic Christ Church, 118 N. Washington St., Alexandria. Free. 703-549-1450. **Sunday, 11 a.m.:** The music of Duke Ellington, Keith Hampton and Will Todd will be performed, and the Latin Mass text that will be sung by the St. John’s Choir, accompanied by the Dan Dufford Trio. St. John’s Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, 1525 H St. NW. Free. 202-347-8766 or www.stjohns-dc.org. **Sunday, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.:** Author Gregory Orfalea discusses his book “Journey to the Sun: Junipero Serra’s Dream and the Founding of California.” Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, St. Pius X Library, 3630 Quesada St. NW. 202-449-3974. **Sunday 11 a.m.-1 p.m.:** Art reception for “Seeing It in Black and White,” with pen and ink on paper creations by Shanthi Chandrasekar, prints by Deron DeCesare, photographs by Marge Wasson, polymer clay by Fran Abrams and glass jewelry by Lisa St. Martin. through April 28. Congregation Har Shalom, Gallery Har Shalom, 11510 Falls Rd., Potomac. Free. 301-299-7087. **Sunday, 12:45-2 p.m.:** Bring a potluck dish that will feed at least three times the number of people in your group and appropriate serving utensils and share great conversation with the cathedral congregation following the coffee hour. The kitchen will not be available for heating or refrigerating dishes or washing them after the meal. If you do not wish to prepare a dish, consider bringing something prepared at a grocery store or restaurant. If your dish includes possible allergens, please label them as tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soy or dairy. Water, coffee and tea will be provided. Volunteers needed. Washington National Cathedral, 7th floor Perry Auditorium, Wisconsin and Massachusetts avenues NW. RSVP: [email protected]. 202-537-6200 or www.nationalcathedral.org. **Sunday, 1:30 p.m. and Thursday 3 p.m.:** “Women in glass and stone.” A docent leads visitors, age 10 and older, on an in-depth tour of the depictions of women carved in stone and represented on glass. Washington National Cathedral, Welcome Desk at Main Visitor Entrance, Wisconsin and Massachusetts avenues NW. $20; seniors, military, students and children, $16, reservations recommended. 202-537-6200 or _www.nationalcathedral.org._ **Sunday, 1-3 p.m.:** Knitting and crocheting workshop on the first and third Sundays of each month. Make items for those in need. Instruction, needles and yarn are available for creating children’s hats, scarves and booties for organizations such as Bright Beginnings that serve homeless children and their families. Washington National Cathedral, fourth floor of the South Tower, Wisconsin and Massachusetts avenues NW. Free. 202-537-6200 or e-mail Mila Michael, [email protected]. **Sunday, 2 p.m.:** “An Ordinary Hero,” the true story of Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, an Arlington resident and, at age 19 in 1961, a Freedom Rider and Civil Rights activist. A panel discussion follows with other local riders. Co- sponsored by Women of Reform Judaism Beth El Hebrew Congregation and the Brandeis National Committee, Northern Virginia Chapter. Beth El Hebrew Congregation, 3830 Seminary Rd., Alexandria. Parking available. $20; students with ID, free. Parking available. Michele Milden, 703-820-7794 or Rhoda Baker, 703-639-8863. **Sunday, 2:30-4:30 p.m.:** The first of six sessions on Israel begins with “Israel-Palestine: Deep Background,” an address by Rev. Dr. Walter Owensby. Other sessions are slated for Sundays through April 6. United Christian Parish, 11508 North Shore Dr., Reston. The United Christian Parish is an ecumenical congregation uniting four denominations: the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church. 703-620-3065. www.unitedchristianparish.org. **Sunday, 4 p.m.:** The Kennedy String Quartet, Kinderkonzert, will engage its young audience of age 4 and older with musical contrasts, from the technical to the emotional. Then, listen to excerpts from the masters, Beethoven, Haydn and Tchaikovsky and get up close with the instruments in a “petting zoo.” Explore simple musical opposites such as high and low, loud and soft, fast and slow, then listen to excerpts of the masters Beethoven, Haydn and Tchaikovsky. St. John’s Episcopal Church, Georgetown Parish, 3240 O St. NW. $30; age 15 and younger, free with free parking at the Hyde Addison School parking lot across the street. RSVP: 202-338-1796. **Sunday, 4 p.m.:** “Perpetual Light.” Washington Master Chorale will perform a meditation on death and eternity, with a centerpiece work, Maurice Durufle’s 1948 masterpiece, Requiem Op. 9 for organ and chorus. National Presbyterian Church, 4101 Nebraska Ave. NW. $25-$50, orchestra seating; $20, balcony; $10, student balcony seating. 202-537-0800. **Sunday, 4 p.m.:** Violinist James Stern and pianist Audrey Andrist perform compositions by Leos Janacek, Josef Suk, Olivier Messiaen and Beethoven. Paint Branch Unitarian Univesalist Church, 3215 Powder Mill Rd., Adelphi. Free, donations appreciated. 301-937-3666. www.PBUUC.org. **Sunday, 4 p.m.:** Violinist James Stern and pianist Audrey Andrist perform. Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church, 3215 Powder Mill Rd., Adelphi. Free, donations appreciated. 301-937-3666 or _www.PBUUC.org._ **Sundays, 5:30** -8 p.m.: “Rebuilding,” for separated, divorced and widowed persons who wish to move on with their lives. The nine-week program concludes on April 27 and includes discussions on anger, guilt/rejection/shame, fear, grief, self-worth, trust and relationships. Registration ends after the March 2 session. St. Martin De Porres Center, 4650 Taney Ave., Alexandria. $50. facilitator@copingrebuilding. 703-596-2673. http://www.copingrebuilding.com. **Most Weekdays 10:30 a.m.:** Behind the scenes cathedral tour, for age 11 and older, see gargoyles and stained-glass windows, and climb a lot of stairs to view the city from high and with a camera, will be held at Washington National Cathedral, Wisconsin and Massachusetts avenues NW. $25; children, seniors, students and military, $21. 202-537-6200 or www.nationalcathedral.org. **Monday, 7 p.m.:** Bible study. Wesley United Methodist Church, Fellowship Hall, 5312 Connecticut Ave NW. Free. 202-966-5144. www.wesleydc.org. **Most Mondays, 7 p.m.:** Sally Jones leads “A Course in Miracles.” Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church, 7400 Temple Hills Rd., Camp Springs. Free. 301-449-4308. www.dmuuc.org. **Mondays, 7-8:30 p.m.:** Food addicts support group. All are welcome. St. Columba’s Episcopal Church, Friendship Terrace Game Room, 4201 Albemarle St. NW. Free. 202-363-4119. **Monday, 7-8:30 p.m.:** Harbingers: A Seasonal Spirituality gathering. Following Celtic tradition, we will explore how the landscape in which we live impacts the inner landscape of our being. Through reading and reflection, conversation and silence we’ll discover how being aware of the harbingers that indicate the turning of the seasons opens us up to a greater awareness of the holy in our lives. Washington National Cathedral, Cathedral Library, Wisconsin and Massachusetts avenues NW. Free. E-mail [email protected]. 202-537-6200 or www.nationalcathedral.org. **Monday, 8 p.m.:** The University of Maryland and the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop collaborate to present Lukas Foss’s 1944 cantata, “The Prairie.” This piece is the prize-winning setting of Carl Sandburg’s poem “Cornhuskers.” It is presented under the direction of C. Paul Heins and will be presented as his dissertation project for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts. Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church, Fourth Street and Independence Avenue SE. Free. 202-547-6839 or _www.chaw.org._ **Tuesday, 10:45 a.m.:** A docent leads a “spiritual reflections” tour that depicts stories of faithful action and devotion highlighted in the building’s glass and stone. The tours offer story, silence, poetry, prayer and reflective invitations, including one to attend Eucharist at noon. Participants will receive a pilgrimage medallion. The tours do not take place on holidays or during special events. Washington National Cathedral, Wisconsin and Massachusetts avenues NW. $15. 202-537-6200 or www.nationalcathedral.org. **Tuesday, Noon and 7 p.m.:** The annual Shrove Tuesday-Mardi Gras Pancake Supper festivities have returned. Ash Wednesday services will be held at noon with Evening Prayer at 7 p.m., followed by “Simple Lenten Supper” at 6:30 p.m. St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, Sixth Street and Maine Avenue SW. [email protected] or 202-554-3222. **Tuesday, 12:10 p.m.:** J. Reilly Lewis leads the Washington Bach Consort and organist Jeremy Filsell. Church of the Epiphany, 1317 G St. NW. Suggested donation, $10. 202-347-2635, Ext. 20. **Tuesday, 1:30 p.m.:** A docent-led tour of the highlights of the cathedral, its history, architecture and artworks — plus a traditional English tea and a scenic view of the city from the cathedral tower. Washington National Cathedral, Docent Station at the Rear Nave, Wisconsin and Massachusetts avenues NW. $30, reservations required. 202-537-8993, www.allhallowsguild.org or [email protected]. **Tuesday, 4-7 p.m.:** Observe Shrove Tuesday by having a meal of pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, applesauce and a beverage. There will also be a bake sale, raffle and thrift shop for bargain shopping. Christ Episcopal Church, 8710 Old Branch Ave., Clinton. $10; seniors and ages 6-12, $8; age 5 and younger, free; ask about the family discount. [email protected]_. 301-868-1330. **Tuesday, 5-7 p.m.:** The Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America invite the community to have an all-you-can-eat pancake supper with sausages, fruit and beverages. Proceeds will go to the North County Emergency Outreach Network, with matching funds from Thrivent Financial. The Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, 7606 Quarterfield Rd., Glen Burnie. $6; ages 6-10, $3; age 5 and younger, free. 410-766-8778. **Tuesday, 5:30-7:30 p.m.:** Come to a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper and Mardi Gras celebration. Proceeds will benefit the HOST Program, a partnership of St. George’s Church and A-SPAN, that provides a place indoors for the homeless to eat supper and have access to case workers and social services. St. George’s Episcopal Church, Parish Hall, 915 N. Oakland St., Arlington. $5; ages 2-12, $3; families, $15. [email protected] or 703-525-8286. **Tuesday, 6-7 a.m.:** Celebrate Shrove Tuesday at the church’s pancake supper. Proceeds will benefit the youth group activities. St. Nicholas Episcopal Church, 15575 Germantown Rd., Germantown. 240-631-2800. **Tuesdays, 7-8:30 p.m.:** Homework Helpers invites parents or guardians to bring their children in grades 1 to 8 for free after school tutoring, advice and homework help. The program is certified by the Episcopal Diocese of Washington under its mandatory “Safeguarding God’s Children” training. St. John’s Church, Broadcreek, St. John’s Bayne Hall, 9801 Livingston Rd., Fort Washington. Free. Registration: Ruth LaBelle, Program Director, 240-461-5330 or [email protected]. **Tuesdays 7-9 p.m.** : “Passages,” a 14-week “DivorceCare” series for those experiencing the pain of separation or divorce, will be held at Vienna Presbyterian Church, Maple Avenue and Park Street, Vienna. Materials cost, $20, scholarships available. Register at 703-938-9050 or [email protected] or www.viennapres.org. **Wednesday, 7 a.m.:** After the 7:00 a.m. service, “Ashes to Go,” a slightly irreverent name for a most solemn religious tradition, will make its second annual journey to the Virginia Square Metro Plaza and the Clarendon Metro Plaza to make the imposition of ashes possible for those whose busy schedules may make a stop at the church itself difficult. Ashes will be available again during the evening commute prior to the 7:30 p.m. service at the church. Those wishing ashes do not have to be a member of a particular faith. St. George’s Episcopal Church, 915 N. Oakland St., Arlington. Free. [email protected]_ or 703-525-8286. _www.saintgeorgeschurch.org._ **Wednesdays, 6 p.m.:** Weekly Bible study. Calvary Episcopal Church, 509 I St. NE. Free. 202-546-8011. **Wednesday, 6:30-7:45 p.m.:** Mental wellness: supporting children, teens and young adults, a discussion about mental health issues that can affect and challenge young people and their families, and gain insights that can help. Feb. 26 topic: Best Practices. The Lutheran Church of St Andrew, 15300 New Hampshire Ave., Silver Spring. Free. 301-384-4394. **Friday, 12:15-1 p.m.:** Richard Gowers, an organ scholar from Kings College, Cambridge, England, will perform a program of works by Mozart and J.S. Bach. National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas Cir. NW. Free, donations welcome. 202-797-0103. **Friday, 6:30 p.m.:** Southwest church potluck and game night, for all ages, bring games to play with family or friends. 7 p.m. Bring a potluck dish for dinner to share. 6:30 p.m., St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, Sixth Street and Maine Avenue SW. Free. 202-554-3222, [email protected] or www.staugustinesdc.org. **Saturday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.:** “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” Dr. Kathleen Staudt, a poet, theologian and spiritual director, and Dr. Raymond Glover, poet, theologian and spiritual director, will lead a Lenten day of reflection, a time of prayer, meditation, reflection and quiet that draws on both the words and the music of both new and familiar hymns of the season. St. Columba’s Episcopal Church, 4201 Albemarle St. NW. Free; lunch, $15. Questions: Rev. Dr. Peter Antoci, 202-363-4119, Ext. 243 or [email protected]. **Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.:** Stephen Caracciolo will lead the Friday Morning Music Club Chorale and singers who wish to participate in a workshop and concert (at 4 p.m.) of compositions by Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Poulenc and Caracciolo. First Baptist Church, 16th and O streets NW. Free. Interested singers and instrumentalists: [email protected] or http://fmmc-chorale- director.weebly.com/. 202-333-2075. **Saturday, 8 p.m.:** HooShir A Cappella, Indiana University’s premier co-ed a cappella group with Jewish roots, and Potomac Fever, a 13-voice a cappella close harmony pop ensemble from the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC will perform. Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, 8900 Little River Tpk., Fairfax. $29; age 65 and older, $24; students and groups of 10 or more, $19. [email protected]. 703-537-3000. www.jccnvarts.org. **— Compiled by Gerri Marmer **

For Whitman, success this season has come from knowing its shortcomings relative to Montgomery County competition. “We’re definitely not as athletic as some of the teams we play,” Coach Chris Lun said after his team’s 37-31 win over Kennedy on Friday night in the first round of the 4A West region playoffs. But that admission forced adjustments all season, the main one a willingness to pass and pass (and pass) through minute-long possessions, to wait for the right shot to open up, to watch time click by if it doesn’t. After a 16-point loss to the Vikings a week ago, Kennedy adjusted, throwing a zone at Whitman’s pass-heavy offense in the hopes of preventing passes from wearing down individuals. So Whitman (17-6) adjusted too, and shot over the zone. At one point in the third quarter, the Vikings had fired 20 three- pointers of 26 total shots. “We’re usually pretty even between threes and twos,” said senior Ben Castagnetti, who outscored Kennedy (13-10) by himself in the third and finished with a game-high 18 points. “We were getting open threes, so we decided to take them.” When the threes stopped falling, the Vikings waited for two-pointers. That patience may have bored the crowd in the Whitman bleachers, but it kept the ball out of Kennedy’s hands, forcing the Cavaliers to take advantage of every possession. But that proved difficult against Whitman’s other 2013-13 staple: help-oriented defense. “Our gap defense allows us to hold more athletic teams down,” said sophomore Kyle Depollar, the Vikings’ leading scorer in the regular season, who added six points Friday. “It stops them from finishing and takes time off the clock.” By game’s end, the Vikings’ slow-’em-down strategy had worked to perfection. The clock ran quickly, whistles blew sparingly, and the Cavaliers didn’t have many possessions with which to work. Though Kennedy hung within two possessions in the final minutes, quick scores proved hard to come by all evening, and the Cavaliers’ comeback stalled as time ran down. “If we work hard on defense, we’re going to hold teams scoreless,” Castagnetti said. “No, we’re not the most athletic, but we get the job done because we buy in on the defensive end.” Suitland had come close to knocking off perennial power Eleanor Roosevelt twice during the regular season. Twice, the Rams had come within three points of beating the defending 4A champions. When it counted most, Suitland (13-9) pulled it off, erasing two three-point losses with one three-point win, 68-65, over the Raiders in Greenbelt in the first round of the 4A South region playoffs. “They have a program that’s used to winning, so we knew we’d have to win the game,” Suitland Coach George McClure said. “They weren’t going to give it to us.” Roosevelt (16-7) looked ready to take the win early, heating up after a back- and-forth first quarter to open up an eight-point lead at halftime. With the Rams’ leading scorer, Gerard Grey (17.5 points per game), in foul trouble early in the second half, Suitland’s Mikeil Watkins stepped up. The junior knocked down crucial threes to go with a big second half from Donnell Graham to keep the Rams close. Then Grey reentered and hit six fourth-quarter baskets — “every one of them huge,” McClure said — to propel the Rams past the Raiders. “It was just a team effort,” McClure said. Roosevelt’s “Andre Fox is a heck of a scorer. We wanted to wear him down, and he had 27, but I think we wore him down just enough. We knew we weren’t going to stop him, so we wanted to do just enough to make a difference.” Suitland will face Wise in the 4A South quarterfinal Monday.

Ten minutes separated No. 6 Briar Woods from a second consecutive Northern Virginia Scholastic Hockey League championship when Stone Bridge’s offensive pressure went from dangerous to relentless. After yet another close call, Falcons senior goalie Elliot Shelton snatched a shot out of the air in front of his net and held his glove over his head amidst “MVP” cheers from the Briar Woods student section. His defenders skated up next to him, grabbed his helmet and offered a variation of whatever encouragement they had been feeding him all night: “keep it up,” “hang in there” and, most accurately, “keep playing the way you are and we’ll win the game.” “They kept telling me, ‘You watch our back, we’ll watch yours,’ ” Shelton said. Shelton and his core defenders — along with a handful of unlucky breaks for the Stone Bridge offense — kept Briar Woods in control for the majority of the night as they rolled to a 4-1 win and a second consecutive title at Kettler Capitals Iceplex. “We just had to play a safe, strong defense game,” said sophomore Cole Judd, whose crucial deflections stymied the fifth-ranked Bulldogs throughout the game. Stone Bridge (11-2) had five power plays but only managed to get on the scoreboard with 1 minute 2 seconds remaining and the result all but secured. “I just tried to keep it all in my head and focus,” Shelton said. “We came into this with a positive mentality.” The Falcons (12-1) came into the final with two crucial advantages over the Bulldogs — the desire for revenge and a crop of 10 seasoned seniors. Stone Bridge scored four first-period goals to cruise to a 6-2 win in the teams’ December meeting. Zach Regester spent 12 minutes of the first period of that game in the penalty box for Briar Woods. On Friday, he scored the Falcons’ first goal less than five minutes into the game. Luke Benitez doubled the advantage in the waning seconds of the first period after skating up the right side through several Bulldogs defenders. Friday marked the third straight state final for the Falcons. On the other bench, the Bulldogs feature just three seniors and one junior. That inexperience showed early as Stone Bridge, which won consecutive titles in 2011 and 2012, struggled to find its flow. Bobby VanDusen gave the Falcons a 3-0 lead midway through the second period, and Regester tacked on the fourth goal with 41 seconds remaining, setting off the Falcons’ celebration. “They all played pretty solid, but our goalie stood on his head for us — overall his best game of the year,” Briar Woods Coach Bill Hughes said. “What it comes down to this time of year is we’ve got a deeper bench, this is our third year in the final and a majority of this team has been here before. They’re a little more experienced.”

**3Pillar** of Fairfax appointed **Jeff Nielson** senior vice president. ******Bank of Georgetown** of the District appointed **Jonathan Higgins** senior vice president. **Creative Associates International** of the District appointed **Sharon Cooley** senior director of proposal development. **Ginsberg Helfer & Boyd **of the District appointed **Miriam Kranton** manager in tax and consulting services practice. ******N-ask** of Fairfax appointed **Ron Hindle** senior program manager, **Dave Shields** vice president and technical director, and **Brian Malone** vice president of non-traditional operations. **Northrop Grumman** of Falls Church appointed **Don J. Chavez** vice president, technical services sector counsel. **Virginia American Water** of Alexandria appointed **Lauren Sufleta** director of operations. ******Xceedium** of Herndon appointed **Mordecai Rosen** chief operating officer. **Aerospace Industries Association** of Arlington appointed **Elizabeth L. Schmid** vice president. **Institute of Medicine** of the District appointed **Victor Dzau** president. **General Aviation Manufacturers Association** of the District appointed **Brian Oszakiewski** director of government affairs. **Jewish Women International** of the District appointed **Meredith Jacobs** vice president of marketing and communications. **** **The Pentagon Federal Credit Union Foundation** of the District appointed **Jane Whitfield** president and chief executive. **** **Women Impacting Public Policy** of the District appointed **Kristie Arslan** executive director. **Edge Commercial** of Bethesda appointed **Justin Talesnick** associate. **Turner Long Construction** of Sterling has appointed **Annemarie Mulvihill** business development manager, **Justin Marianetti** assistant project manager and **Beth Hoel** assistant project manager. **Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle **of the District appointed **Claudia Frutos-Peterson** partner. **** **Hogan Lovells** of the District appointed **Tom Peters** senior technical advisor. **McKenna Long & Aldridge **of the District appointed **Robin S. Conrad** partner. **Paul Hastings** of the District appointed **Scott Flicker** chair. **Tully Rinckey** of the District appointed **Cheri L. Cannon** partner and **Sarah L. McKinin** associate. **—Compiled by Michael Livingston II** Send information about promotions, appointments and personnel moves in the Washington area to Appointments, Business News, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071-5302, or to [email protected].

HAMPTON, Va. — The lifeless environment of the Boo Williams Sportsplex on Friday morning was mirroring Mustaqeem Williams’s performance in the triple jump. After Tallwood’s Steven Dunbar took the lead atop the standings, Williams injected some energy by starting a slow-clap. It resulted in a five-second rush of noise, and the Forest Park senior posting a distance of 47 feet 3.5 inches. While it was far from his personal best, the mark was still enough to win the event at the Virginia 6A and 5A indoor track and field championships. “I’m kind of disappointed in the jump,” Williams said. “But a win is a win. I got 10 points. That’s 10 points for my team, and that’s one step closer to the trophy.” With the win, Williams swept the horizontal jumps at the 6A meet. The Florida State-bound standout improved his national-best high school mark in winning the long jump on Thursday. Normally, Williams’s accomplishments here would be the talk of the venue, but the first year of the Virginia High School League’s reclassification has brought small crowds and low energy. “It takes a lot of focus and a lot of momentum to actually get your body, to get everything going,” Williams said. “For me, it did feel dead. But I think the only thing that got me hyped was my opponent that jumped the same thing as I did, and that motivated me to push a little harder.” Williams’s Bruins will go for a second straight state title when the meet concludes Saturday. In other events, Osbourn Park’s 4x800-meter relay team of Kyle Weinberg, Matt Luiggi, Jacob Black and Nick Causey won by more than five seconds ahead of second-place Oakton. West Springfield won the girls’ 4x800-meter relay behind Kiera Bothwell, Reagan Bustamante, Caroline Alcorta and Katie Kennedy. Oakton took third, and Washington-Lee finished fourth. Lake Braddock’s Rachael Fasana and Maggie Ruud were second and sixth in the pole vault, respectively, while South County’s Morgan Knight earned fifth. West Springfield’s John Seals took third in the high jump. Other top locals on Friday included Hylton’s Brittany Nguetta (fourth in high jump); Forest Park’s Brandon Daley (fifth in high jump); Robinson’s Uloma Nwaolu (fourth in triple jump, sixth in high jump) and Azunna Nwaolu (fifth in triple jump); Lake Braddock’s Skyla Davidson (fifth in triple jump) and South County’s Kevin Hires (fourth in triple jump).

●A Going Out Guide item in this weekend’s WP Magazine, which was printed in advance, says that Wes Anderson’s film “The Grand Budapest Hotel” will open March 7. The release date has been moved to March 14. The Washington Post is committed to correcting errors that appear in the newspaper. Those interested in contacting the paper for that purpose can: **E-mail:** [email protected]. **Call:** 202-334-6000, and ask to be connected to the desk involved — National, Foreign, Metro, Style, Sports, Business or any of the weekly sections. Comments can be directed to The Post’s reader advocate, who can be reached at 202-334-7582 or [email protected].

With less than two minutes remaining in Friday’s Maryland Student Hockey League 2A championship game against Leonardtown, Wootton defenseman Jordy Bretner scored a goal and dropped to one knee. As he slid toward the center of the ice, he threw one glove in the air and pointed his stick at it, as if he were shooting the glove out of the air. Bretner’s older brother, Josh, frequently used the celebration during his time at Wootton, when the Patriots won back-to-back state titles in 2008 and 2009. So with the team minutes away from another championship, Bretner figured, why not? “I went for it,” Bretner said, grinning. “It’s cool coming out here and winning one, just like he did.” Bretner was whistled for unsportsmanlike conduct — the 22nd penalty of the game —but he didn’t care. The Wootton-heavy crowd went bonkers, and Bretner smiled as he skated to the penalty box. His second goal of the night was also the last, as No. 3 Wootton cruised to a 7-1 victory at the Gardens Ice House in Laurel. Five others scored for the Patriots (16-1), who won their third state title and first since 2009. “We have a deep team, a really talented group,” Coach Dave Evans said. “We were pretty disciplined, even with the penalties. We played a smart game.” It took 40 seconds for Wootton to score its first goal, and it took all of 17 minutes after that for the game to spiral out of control. The Patriots led 3-0 early in the second period as their crowded student section continued to taunt the Leonardtown goalie, who lost his cool and skated toward the glass. The goalie gestured at Wootton’s fans and had to be restrained by referees, drawing one of Leonardtown’s 11 penalties. Senior Austin Schoenfeld scored five seconds later to give the Patriots a 4-0 lead. Leonardtown (13-1) scored its lone goal with 5 minutes 29 seconds left in the second period but otherwise appeared more focused on ramming the Patriots into the boards than scoring on them. Wootton was equally violent. “This was by far the most physical game,” Bretner said. “We weren’t expecting all of this, but when it gets physical, you’ve got to hold your own.” Ben Keppler, Nic Band, Luke Klecker and Harrison Linowes also scored for Wootton. Friday marked the final game for 10 Wootton seniors. When asked what will most stick out about this particular group, Evans paused. “The balance,” he finally said. “We didn’t rely on two guys, three guys. Third line, fourth line — it really didn’t matter who it was. We had a captain on the fourth line. We really had so many guys who could contribute.”

The Venezuelan government was seeking to arrest a top associate of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo López on Friday as the official death toll from more than two weeks of violence in the country rose to 17. Protests continued to rage in parts of Venezuela, despite a days-long holiday declared by President Nicolás Maduro beginning Thursday in hopes of dampening the demonstrations. Many businesses sent employees home through at least Tuesday. Clashes between demonstrators and government supporters and authorities were reported Friday in the western state of Tachira and the northern state of Aragua. Tear gas and rubber bullets were used to disperse marchers in Tachira; looting was reported this week in Aragua. Authorities issued an arrest warrant Thursday for Carlos Vecchio, national political coordinator of the Popular Will party, an anti-government group formed by López before his arrest. The charges against Vecchio include incitement to violence, the same accusation leveled at López, the former Caracas borough mayor. Vecchio’s whereabouts were not clear Friday. **— Reuters** Cuban President Raúl Castro and top leaders of the Cuban government and Communist Party greeted a Cuban intelligence agent with a hero’s welcome upon his return to Havana on Friday, a day after his release from a U.S. prison. Fernando González, 50, had served more than 15 years for spying on Cuban American exile groups in Miami and is one of the “Cuban Five” whose detentions have complicated the already tense relations between the United States and Cuba. The United States deported him Friday, and he told reporters he was in handcuffs until the plane landed at in Havana. The FBI arrested him in 1998 along with four other Cuban agents. All were convicted in 2001 of 26 counts of spying for Fidel Castro’s government. **— Reuters** Colombia’s FARC rebels asked for the United States to join its peace talks with the Colombian government, saying Friday that it would speed up the process because Washington was making all the key decisions anyway. The State Department said it disagreed with the assessment of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and was unaware of any effort to join the talks. Colombia did not respond to the request, which it would likely reject on grounds of national sovereignty. “Who is really determining what happens or not here is the U.S. government, so we would like to speak with the government of the United States,” Iván Márquez, head of the FARC’s negotiating team in Havana, said before entering the latest round of talks. “We would reach an understanding much quicker.” For the past 15 months, Cuba has hosted talks aimed at ending the half-century-old guerrilla conflict, the longest in Latin America. The fighting has claimed about 200,000 lives. **— Reuters** **— From news services**

Let us now praise Rep. Dave Camp, the outgoing Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who last week unveiled a comprehensive plan to reform the federal tax code that was at once politically courageous and intellectually consistent — exactly the sort of thing certain to upset the martini carts along K Street. No sooner had the details been released than the crony capitalists from the energy, real estate and financial services industries were out there criticizing the Michigan Republican for jeopardizing American jobs, American competitiveness and the American dream — every bit of their fulminations self-serving economic nonsense. There was also the predictable whining from the small-business lobby, already heavily favored by the tax code, about how there was nothing new in it for them. More curious was the reaction from elected officials of both parties, whose polite dismissals took the form of praising Camp for having kicked off a much-needed discussion of tax reform and then acknowledging in some fashion that nothing would actually come of it this year, or maybe ever. “Blah, blah, blah, blah,” the Republican speaker of the House declared when asked about Camp’s proposal, pretty much summing up the collective reaction of leaders in both houses of Congress. On this, as on most other issues these days, Republicans can’t seem to decide what they think. They have never been able to reconcile the arithmetic contradiction between their fervent desires for reducing taxes and reducing the federal deficit. While many embrace the idea of simplifying a complex and distortional tax code, they are unwilling to risk losing the political and financial support from the special business interests that have bought and paid for all those breaks. And while they are desperate to demonstrate that they can actually accomplish something, the are so blinded by their hatred of President Obama that they have convinced themselves the only way to win seats in the next election is to do nothing for the rest of the year that might distract attention from Obamacare. It’s all rather pathetic. More curious was the reaction of the Democrats at the White House and on Capitol Hill, which was certainly more respectful but only marginally more encouraging than that of Republican leaders. After all, here was a credible proposal from a Republican that would increase the share of taxes paid by businesses and the wealthy, lower tax rates for almost everyone else, use a big increase in the standard deduction and child credit to get 95 percent of households out of the business of itemizing deductions, close down the most abusive corporate tax dodges, incorporate White House ideas to close loopholes for hedge fund managers and corporate jets and increase spending on transportation infrastructure — all while coming within shouting distance of raising as much revenue as the present tax code. Oh, and did I mention that it would also create jobs, make American companies more competitive, reduce the cost of tax compliance for households and businesses and generally spur economic growth? There are, of course, some aspects of Camp’s proposal that Democrats find unacceptable. But as a starting point for a negotiation over economic policy, Camp’s 978-page blueprint was light years better than anything that has come out of the Republican caucus since 1996. There are two possibilities here. One was that Camp was given a flashing yellow light by Republican leaders to float his proposal in an effort to get out in front on the issue of tax reform and demonstrate that theirs was not simply the “party of no,” without actually having to bring anything to a vote. The other, more likely, is that a frustrated Camp, having traveled the country last year holding hearings on tax reform with his Senate counterpart and facing the expiration of his chairmanship of the tax-writing committee in December, decided to defy his leadership and his caucus and put his proposal out there. But whether Camp was a scout carrying a phony peace feeler or a high-level defector, the right response for Democrats would have been to welcome him with open arms and accept his invitation to negotiate a bipartisan agreement now — this year. (You gotta love the idea of bringing David Camp to Camp David!) Even if no agreement was reached, Democrats would have had the perfect vehicle to raise their chosen issues of income inequality and corporate responsibility in the run-up to the November elections. And from a purely cynical political viewpoint, creating a high-visibility negotiation with Camp around tax reform would further expose the divisions of the Republican caucus in the House and Senate and put some distance between the Republican Party and portions of the business community — retailers, manufacturers and the big-business Business Roundtable — that has provided the GOP with political and financial support. Where I see a golden opportunity, however, administration officials and Democratic congressional aides see only political pitfalls in chasing after the chimera of yet another grand bargain that will come to naught because of Republican intransigence. More to the point, they think it pointless to engage in politically painful discussions about the structure of the tax code, which inevitably involves creating winners and losers, unless it is part of an overall, long-term budget agreement. By agreeing to a “revenue neutral” budget agreement, they argue, Democrats would effectively be giving up on their top priority, which is to increase revenue for vital government services and benefits — revenue that, to their minds, must come from increasing taxes on the rich and on big corporations. In other words, we can’t resolve anything until we resolve everything — which is precisely the stance taken by Republicans, and precisely the stance that has delivered the political system into its current stalemate, with each side holding firm in the hope of winning control of the White House and Congress and, with it, total victory. There’s only one flaw in that strategy, which by now is obvious to everyone outside the White House and the cloakrooms of the House and Senate: The American people don’t want either party to achieve total victory. And the more each side insists on achieving total victory, the less likely either is to get it. Which is why it is so disappointing that neither party has seized on Dave Camp’s tax reform proposal as a way of breaking this Hatfield-and-McCoy political stalemate that is now turning even the politicians off to politics. As Camp has demonstrated, there is actually rather broad agreement on both the need for tax reform and on the broad outlines of how to achieve it. Moreover, if a genuinely revenue-neutral tax reform agreement could be reached, it would not, in fact, preclude a subsequent grand bargain over the overall level of taxes and spending. Rather, such an achievement would help restore a measure of political trust between the parties that is now absent in Washington. And it would help clarify the budget debate if voters and politicians would confront the reality that if they want more overall spending, they will have to accept higher taxes to pay for it. No longer would either party be able to rely on some vague promise that “tax reform” would somehow magically deliver a painless solution to our budget dilemma.

A land-use plan that officials hope will begin to transform long-neglected eastern Montgomery County has been sent back to the drawing board because of concerns that it does not accurately forecast the volume of traffic that would be generated by new construction. Next week, the County Council was scheduled to begin discussions of the White Oak Science Gateway master plan, which proposes to turn 300 acres near the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration on New Hampshire Avenue into a hub for medical research firms with office space, retail and housing. The blueprint also calls for redeveloping the White Oak Shopping Center and the Hillandale neighborhood, with the entire area served by a new system of bus- only lanes designed to lure people out of their cars and onto mass transit. Gateway is a joint venture of the county, which owns some of the land, and Percontee, a private developer based in Silver Spring. The Montgomery Planning Board approved the proposal in September. But when council staff members reviewed it in preparation for next week’s work session, they grew concerned that the board’s traffic analysis may have been conducted with outmoded or incorrect data. The master plan approved by the planning board, for example, assumed that a “gold standard” rapid-transit bus system would be available along Route 29, the major road that bisects the project area. In November, however, the council approved a separate long-range transit plan that did not provide for new bus lanes on the segment of Route 29 in Four Corners, near University Boulevard and Colesville Road in Silver Spring. The lanes were omitted in response to protests from residents who did not want Route 29 widened to accommodate the buses. The disparity means that estimates of new traffic generated by the White Oak project could be incorrect. The land-use plan was returned to the planning board for further analysis. Officials said that because the council is scheduled to begin work on the county’s annual operating budget next month, it might not be able to consider the White Oak land-use plan until June. This is the second time that the council has bounced the plan back to the planning board. Last fall, council members returned it because of concerns that proposed road and transportation improvements were inadequate to handle projected traffic. “It’s very annoying, because we anticipated having all this work done in the fall,” said council member Nancy Floreen (D-At Large), head of the council’s planning committee.

The Buffalo Sabres traded star goalie Ryan Miller and captain Steve Ott to the St. Louis Blues on Friday night for goalie Jaroslav Halak, forward Chris Stewart, prospect William Carrier, a 2015 first-round pick and a conditional 2016 third-round pick. The Central Division-leading Blues shored up their goaltending in an attempt to avoid another disappointing playoff run after being eliminated by Los Angeles in successive seasons. Miller won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goalie in 2010, the year he was the most valuable player of the Olympic tournament in Vancouver, and is Buffalo’s franchise leader with 284 victories and 540 games. This season, he’s 15-22-3 with a 2.72 goals against average and .923 save percentage. . . . Now that the New York Rangers have reached a new deal with defenseman Dan Girardi, they can fully focus on trying to do the same with captain Ryan Callahan before next week’s NHL trade deadline. The 29-year-old Girardi and the Rangers agreed to terms on a long-term contract extension, taking the key right-side defenseman off the trading block and keeping him away from unrestricted free agency this summer. The deal is reportedly for six years and $33 million. . . . Pittsburgh Penguins Coach Dan Bylsma says defenseman Paul Martin had surgery to repair his broken right hand. Bylsma says doctors decided the operation “would be a better avenue for recovery, a quicker recovery.” Martin injured his hand while playing for the United States in the quarterfinal round of the Sochi Olympics and is out for four to six weeks. Bylsma announced the surgery after Pittsburgh practiced at Soldier Field on Friday in preparation for Saturday night’s game against Chicago. ● **SABRES 4, SHARKS 2:** Jhonas Enroth made 36 saves as host Buffalo beat San Jose a few hours after it traded Miller and Ott. Cody Hodgson, Brian Flynn, Matt Moulson and Tyler Myers scored for the Sabres, while Enroth played well in the absence of Miller. Miller was set to start his 541st career game for the Sabres but was pulled from the lineup. James Sheppard and Patrick Marleau scored for San Jose. ● **AVALANCHE 4, COYOTES 2:** Gabriel Landeskog had a goal and two assists, Paul Stastny had a goal and an assist and Colorado beat Phoenix in Denver. The Avalanche’s Semyon Varlamov stopped 40 shots in his first game since playing for Russia in the Olympics.

Golf is starting to feel easy again for **Rory McIlroy** , who bounced back from a sloppy start Friday at the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., for a 4-under-par 66 that gave him his first 36-hole lead on the PGA Tour in 18 months. **Tiger Woods** is making it look hard. McIlroy recovered from two early bogeys by running off six birdies in a 10-hole stretch. He looked solid from tee-to-green, hit putts with growing confidence and wound up with a one-shot lead over former Virginia Tech golfer **Brendon de Jonge**. McIlroy was at 11-under 129. Woods was over the cut line after scrambling for a bogey on the 11th hole and wound up with a 69 to make the cut on the number. Because 79 players made the cut, there will be another cut to top 70 and ties on Saturday. Woods missed the 54-hole cut the last time he played on the PGA Tour at Torrey Pines. And at least he’s still playing the weekend. That wasn’t the case for **Phil Mickelson**. Playing the Honda Classic for the first time in 12 years, he had a 71 to miss the cut. So did **Henrik Stenson** , the No. 3 player in the world, with rounds of 73-76. . . . Australia’s **Karrie Webb** opened a two-stroke lead in the HSBC Women’s Champions, shooting a 3-under 69 to reach 9 under on Sentosa’s Serapong Course in Singapore. . . . England’s **Ross Fisher** had an eagle-birdie-birdie-par finish to take a one- stroke lead after the second round of the Tshwane Open in Centurion, South Africa. The Maryland basketball teams received their maiden Big Ten home-road schedules, offering a preview of their first seasons in the conference in 2014-15. The men’s team is slated for home-and-home series against Indiana, Michigan State, Nebraska, Penn State and fellow Big Ten newcomer Rutgers. It also will host Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern and Wisconsin. Maryland will travel to Illinois, Iowa, Ohio State and Purdue. The women’s team will face Indiana, Michigan State, Nebraska, Penn State and Rutgers in home-and-home series. The Terrapins also will host Illinois, Iowa, Ohio State and Purdue and travel to Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern and Wisconsin. **— Alex Prewitt** New Mexico State suspended guard **K.C. Ross-Miller** for actions that touched off a wild brawl between players and fans following a game between the Aggies and Utah Valley. A league spokesman said the Western Athletic Conference was also looking into the incident. . . . Florida Atlantic’s **Mike Jarvis** will resign at the end of the season, his 25th as a head coach and his sixth with the Owls. Jarvis has a record of 77-109 with Florida Atlantic. He took Boston University, George Washington and St. John’s to the NCAA tournament. **Brad Keselowski** earned the pole at Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale, Ariz., after making it through NASCAR’s new knockout-style qualifying. Keselowski had a fast lap of 139.384 mph, turning the mile oval in 25.828 seconds to earn a spot on the front row next to **Joey Logano** for Sunday’s 312-mile race. . . . ****Fourth-seeded **Roger Federer** ended top-seeded **Novak Djokovic** ’s chance of defending his Dubai Championships title with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 semifinal win in the United Arab Emirates. Federer will be looking for his sixth Dubai title when he plays third-seeded **Tomas Berdych** of the Czech Republic in Saturday’s final. Berdych reached his second consecutive Dubai Championships final with a 7-5, 7-5 semifinal win over seventh-seeded **Philiipp Kohlschreiber** of Germany. . . . ****Trinidad and Tobago international soccer player **Kevon Carter** died of a suspected heart attack after training with his club team. **— From news services** **and staff reports**

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MOSCOW — Russian troops took control of vital installations across the Crimean Peninsula on Saturday, and Russian President Vladimir Putin secured authorization to send in more as the Kremlin set the stage for a high-stakes international showdown over the future of Ukraine. On Sunday, Ukraine's leader urged Putin to pull back his military, saying "we are on the brink of disaster," according to the Associated Press. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine’s new prime minister, spoke after a closed session of his new parliament in Kiev. On Saturday, the interim president of Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov, said, “We consider the behavior of the Russian Federation to be direct aggression against the sovereignty of Ukraine.” Hours later, President Obama, who had warned Putin on Friday against military intervention in Crimea, had an apparently tense 90-minute telephone exchange with the Russian president. Obama said that a refusal by Russia to send troops back to their bases in Ukraine would “impact Russia’s standing in the international community.” According to the Kremlin, Putin argued that Ukrainian “ultranationalists” were threatening “the lives and health of Russian citizens” in Crimea. On Sunday, a convoy of hundreds of Russian troops was seen headed toward Simferopol, the regional capital, the Associated Press reports. In Crimea and in cities across eastern Ukraine, where opposition to Kiev’s new government runs high, Russia’s aggressive stance gladdened the hearts of thousands of protesters. Russian flags were raised in Donetsk, and a group of pro-government activists who had occupied the main government building in Kharkiv were beaten and routed by pro-Russian protesters. More than 100 were reported injured. But Ukrainian nationalist groups in the country’s west vowed to mobilize against the Russian threat. Russia and the West find themselves on the brink of a confrontation far more perilous than in 2008 over Georgia, Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center wrote on his blog, referring to Russia’s previous war. The Ukrainian military, which has taken part in NATO operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and partnered frequently with its Polish counterpart, is far smaller than Russia’s. But if a confrontation should erupt, the Russians would find that Ukraine’s forces are better equipped and trained than Georgia’s were. Still, Russia has worked since 2008 to improve its military capabilities, through reforms and increased spending. The pressure on Kiev, where a new government was sworn in Thursday after the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, is intense. Vitali Klitschko, leader of the UDAR party and a candidate for president, called for a general mobilization to thwart the Russians. On Saturday, Ukraine’s new prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, called for “the government and authorities of Russia to recall their forces and to return them to their stations. Russian partners, stop provoking civil and military confrontation in Ukraine.” Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said the Russian president had not decided whether to use the authorization to send in more troops. Putin may choose not to push the Crimean crisis any further, said Mark Galeotti, a New York University professor and Russian security expert in Moscow. “Anything more than that would be trickier and messier,” Galeotti said. “In classic Putin style, he’s increasing tension. He’s trying to make sure Kiev understands it has to consider Russian interests in whatever post-Yanukovych order emerges. I don’t think Russia wants to annex Crimea. It wants to make sure its bases are protected and its client regions are given the most autonomy they can arrange.” Russia’s decision to authorize troops came in what appeared to be a highly orchestrated series of steps, beginning with a plea to Moscow for fraternal assistance from Crimea’s new leader. And it raises as many questions about what kind of country Russia will become as it does about Ukraine. Just last Sunday night, Putin was sitting in Sochi’s Fisht Stadium for the Closing Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. Thomas Bach, the head of the International Olympic Committee, declared, “You send a powerful message from Sochi to the world: the message of a society of peace, tolerance and respect.” The next night, more than 400 Russians were rounded up in Moscow, protesting prison terms for anti-Putin demonstrators. Later in the week, opposition leader Alexei Navalny was put under house arrest for two months. And now, troops for Ukraine. “I am very ashamed today,” tweeted Viktor Shenderovich, a Russian satirist. But the members of the upper house of Russia’s parliament, who voted unanimously to give Putin a free hand to deploy troops to Ukraine, appeared to be delighted. They also appealed to him to recall the Russian ambassador to Washington, to show displeasure over what they described as threats by Obama over Ukraine. In Crimea, helmeted soldiers with military-style rifles, without insignia and declining to state their nationality, stood guard at, or encircled, government installations. Troops patrolled the airport in Simferopol, which was closed to air traffic, and stood in front of the council of ministers and regional parliament, where a Russian flag flew from the roof. Soldiers also control the military airport at Belbek. Earlier in the day, the new prime minister of the Crimea region, Serhiy Aksyonov, appealed to Putin for help maintaining “peace and tranquility.” In short order, the Russian Foreign Ministry claimed that “unidentified gunmen directed from Kiev” had tried to capture the Crimean Interior Ministry headquarters. Calling the attempt a “treacherous provocation,” Moscow said, “We believe it is irresponsible to continue whipping up the already tense situation in the Crimea.” Igor Aveytskiy, who was named by the Kiev government to serve as chief of Crimea’s national police, said there was no attack. “It’s all rumors, all lies,” said Mikhail Amirov, a member of a pro-Russia self- defense militia on guard in front of the headquarters building But Moscow apparently had the allegation it needed. A committee of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, asked Putin to intervene. He made his request, and the Federation Council, the upper house, promptly gave it unanimous approval. The authorization does not limit the troops to Crimea but allows them to be sent to all of Ukraine. On Saturday afternoon, 10 troop carriers, accompanied by armored jeeps, arrived at the Ukrainian coast guard base in the resort town of Balaklava and took up positions inside and outside the installation. Russian Orthodox priests stood among the troops and sang hymns. Large crowds gathered to wave Russian flags wherever the troops appeared. The Crimea regional government, dominated by pro-Russia deputies, announced it would hold a referendum March 30 to decide among three choices: “to retain its current status as an autonomous republic within Ukraine, to become an independent state, or to become part of Russia,” according to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti. In Kiev, Klitschko called on the Verkhovna Rada, or Ukrainian parliament, to renounce the agreement permitting the Russian navy to maintain its base in Sevastopol. Lesya Orobets, a member of the Rada and an organizer of the protest movement, wrote on Facebook that “people who were no longer afraid of their mad dictator” and were able to overthrow him — a reference to the ousted Yanukovych — “should not be afraid of another dictator.” Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who helped negotiate a 1994 memorandum on Ukrainian territorial sovereignty, tweeted Saturday that there is “no doubt in my mind that Russia is violating its commitments.” In Kharkiv, police stood by as protesters swarmed into a building occupied by activists who support the new government, beating their opponents before hoisting Russian and Ukrainian flags. Tens of thousands of people gathered in the morning to protest the Maidan revolution. The assault on the building was “completely spontaneous,” said Denis Levshinko, a sociology student who participated in the rout of the Maidan activists. “We are all fed up with them. We united, and we chased them out.” Many of the occupiers were taken captive and dragged onto the street, where, forced to their knees, they apologized to the jubilant crowds. “They’re drug addicts,” one woman said. “They’re no better than frozen vegetables.” Englund reported from Kiev; Booth reported from Simferopol. Isabel Gorst in Kharkiv contributed to this report.

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin received permission from Russia’s upper house of parliament Saturday to send troops to Ukraine, responding to what he called a threat to Russian lives. The request was made and granted after what appeared to be a highly orchestrated series of assertions that were disputed by knowledgeable Ukrainians. Oleksandr Turchynov, interim president of Ukraine, said: “We consider the behavior of the Russian Federation to be direct aggression against the sovereignty of Ukraine.” After approving the troop request, the Federation Council said it planned to ask Putin to consider recalling Russia’s ambassador to the United States, to show displeasure over what it described as threats by President Obama over Ukraine. The Federation Council, or upper house, unanimously approved authorization of Russian troops in Ukraine, not limiting any deployment to the Crimean Peninsula. But Putin has not yet decided on any action regarding troops or a recall of the Russian ambassador to Washington, his spokesman said Saturday night. “Of course, he will make these decisions based on how the situation develops,” Dmitry Peskov told Russia 24 television. U.S. officials said that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke later Saturday with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, and that Secretary of State John F. Kerry spoke with Turchynov, Ukraine’s interim president. The rapidly unfolding chain of events began Saturday morning after Crimean Prime Minister Serhiy Aksyonov asked Russia for help to ensure “peace and tranquility,” saying that the government in Kiev was unable to keep order. Then the Russian Foreign Ministry asserted that “unidentified gunmen directed from Kiev” had tried to capture the Crimean Interior Ministry headquarters overnight. “As a result of this treacherous provocation there were casualties,” the ministry said in a statement. “With decisive action, the attempt by vigilante groups to seize the Interior Ministry building was averted. This confirms the desire of prominent political circles in Kiev to destabilize the peninsula. We encourage those who give such orders from Kiev to show restraint. We believe it is irresponsible to continue whipping up the already tense situation in the Crimea.” That account was disputed in Simferopol, the Crimean regional capital. Igor Aveytskiy, who was named by the Kiev government to serve as chief of Crimea’s national police, said in an interview that “all was peaceful” at the building overnight. The story line was different in Moscow. There, a council of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, asked Putin to intervene. “The deputies are calling on the president to take measures to stabilize the situation in Crimea,” Duma chairman Sergei Naryshkin said, “and use all resources available to protect the Crimean population from lawlessness and violence.” Next came Valentina Matviyenko, chairwoman of the Federation Council. “Perhaps in this situation we could grant the Crimean government’s request,” she said, “and send a limited contingent there to provide security for the Black Sea Fleet and Russian citizens living in Crimea.” Then Putin made his request, and 30 minutes later a Federation Council committee approved it. After the vote, Matviyenko said that while Russia was justified in approving the use of troops in Ukraine, neither NATO nor the United States had that right. “We are acting in strict compliance with legislation and the constitution. One needs a reason to use such an extreme measure,” she told Interfax, saying the lives of Russians in Crimea were under threat. Ukraine’s new prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, urged Russia to refrain from provocation. “We call on the government and authorities of Russia to recall their forces and to return them to their stations,” Yatsenyuk said, according to the Interfax news agency. “Russian partners, stop provoking civil and military confrontation in Ukraine.” In a tweet, he also said that Russia is violating the terms of the agreement with Ukraine on its lease of the naval base at Sevastopol. Late Saturday afternoon, the national security council of Ukraine met to discuss the Russian move, Yuri Lutsenko, one of the organizers of the Maidan protests and a former interior minister, told the crowd in Independence Square. All the new members of the government were in attendance, he said, according to the UNIAN news agency. “The Ukrainian state exists. It will continue to exist,” Lutsenko said. “Ukraine will remain a coherent European country.” Vitali Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxing champion and head of the opposition UDAR party who is now running for president, called for a general mobilization in response to the Russian move. In a statement posted on his party’s Web site, he also called on the Verkhovna Rada, or Ukrainian parliament, to renounce the agreement permitting the Russian navy to maintain its base in Sevastopol. The militant Ukrainian nationalist group Pravy Sektor, which led much of the fighting against riot police on the fringes of the Maidan, announced it would fully “mobilize” against the threat from Moscow. “This invasion is not only directed against the Ukrainian people, but against all citizens of Ukraine,” the organization said on its Web site. “Specifically, much of it is directed against the Crimean Tatar people.” The statement declared to “all Ukrainian citizens, regardless of nationality (including Russian), that our struggle is anti-imperial and not Russophobic.” Lesya Orobets, a member of the Rada and an organizer of the protest movement, wrote on Facebook that “people who were no longer afraid of their mad dictator” and were able to overthrow him — a reference to ousted President Viktor Yanukovych — “should not be afraid of another dictator.” She continued: “I know we have not yet had time to mourn for our people, to heal the wounds and hug our children. And again you have to find the strength to unite and protect the most valuable thing we have — freedom, Ukraine, life and dreams of our children. “We won’t surrender to his will,” she wrote, referring to Putin. “We shall win again.” Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who helped negotiate a 1994 memorandum on Ukrainian territorial sovereignty, tweeted Saturday that there is “no doubt in my mind that Russia is violating its commitments.” He also called the Russian move a violation of a 1997 treaty between Ukraine and Russia that includes the lease on the Sevastopol base, which was extended by both parties in 2010. Earlier, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt tweeted: “Russian military intervention in Ukraine is clearly against international law and principles of European security.” Aksyonov, who became prime minister Thursday, belongs to the Russian Unity party in Crimea, which won about 4 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary election. A political analyst in Kiev, Pavel Nuss, told the UNN news agency there Saturday that according to his information Yulia Tymoshenko, the former Ukrainian prime minister just released from prison, will travel to Moscow on Monday along with Turchynov, the interim president, and Yatsenyuk, the new prime minister, for talks on the crisis, with the agreement of Putin. That could not be immediately confirmed. Tymoshenko is the arch-nemesis of Yanukovych, but she and Putin developed a good working relationship when she was Ukraine’s prime minister.

The Maryland House of Delegates has approved legislation that would make it a crime to disseminate “revenge porn” — using private, intimate photos or videos to harass or embarrass someone, often once a relationship ends. The bill, which passed in a 130 to 0 vote Friday morning, sets penalties for those who cause “serious emotional distress to another by intentionally placing” an identifiable pornographic image, video or recording online. Those found guilty of the crime would face up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000. The Maryland Senate has yet to take action on the measure. Several states have contemplated similar legislation, while navigating tricky questions about First Amendment rights. California and New Jersey have made such actions a crime, and Virginia is close to making the malicious distribution of pornographic material a Class 1 misdemeanor. In Maryland, there have been several competing versions of revenge porn legislation, but lawmakers ultimately settled on one drafted by Del. Luiz R.S. Simmons (D-Montgomery). In a statement Friday, Simmons said it was not easy to craft a bill that “balances the need to protect men and women from ridicule, humiliation, and personal destruction while still respecting the boundaries of the First Amendment.” He said he hopes the legislation will “become a model for legislatures across the nation.”

Six people have been slain in the District since Thursday, a spike in homicides that has brought the total to 25 this year. The six killings occurred in a period of less than 35 hours. Four of the slayings took place within about seven hours Friday night and early Saturday, beginning with the shooting of two brothers outside a church where a youth choir was practicing. That double killing in Northeast Washington was followed within hours by two more homicides, one in Southeast and one in Northwest. No obvious connection could be found among the five incidents, which occurred in three quadrants of the city and included a stabbing and an apparent beating in addition to shootings. In the year’s first 60 days, the city has had almost one-quarter as many homicides as in all of 2013, when 104 were recorded. In the most recent of the six recent killings , Billy Andre Harris of Northwest was fatally shot about 3 a.m. Saturday in the 4800 block of Ninth Street NW, police said. A lifelong resident of the neighborhood, Harris, 51, lived near where he was killed, said his younger brother, Marcus Jerkins. “He knew everybody,” Jerkins said. “Everyone who knew him loved him and loved being around him,” Jerkins said. Harris, the father of two and a veteran of D.C. National Guard service, had recently completed a job training program and was looking for work, Jerkins said. He was “just getting his life back together,” his brother said. About three hours before Harris’s death, police found Andre McIntyre, 46, unconscious about 12:20 a.m. in the 3700 block of D Street SE. The cause of his death was blunt-force trauma to the head and neck, police said. Someone who knew McIntyre said he had “two beautiful daughters he loved very much” and who “loved him very much.” He also had three grandsons and was called “a nice guy and very friendly.” In Friday night’s double shooting, Khalid Jamal Bryant, 34, and Jason Emmanuel Bryant, 26, were shot multiple times outside Antioch Baptist Church at 50th Street and Lee Street NE, in the Deanwood area. “They were good guys, very good guys,” a relative said. “They would do anything for you.” Pastor William H. Gibbs said more than 15 adults and almost twice as many children were in the church at the time. Some were members of the junior choir, but several children were practicing a play to be staged at a wedding. Residents of the area, a section of single-family houses, said they heard as many as 10 gunshots. No shots were heard in the church. Church members saw the flashing lights of police vehicles and saw that crime-scene tape had been strung. But none of the church members had to pass a fallen body as they left, Gibbs said. The brothers were not members, he said. In the first two of the six slayings, two teenagers were killed Thursday. One was stabbed and the other shot. An arrest was made in the stabbing, police said.

KHARKIV, Ukraine — Anger spilled onto the streets in the eastern city of Kharkiv on Saturday as protesters stormed the regional government headquarters, ending the six-day occupation of the building by Ukrainian nationalist activists. Police stood by as protesters swarmed into the building, beating their opponents and taking prisoners before hoisting Russian and Ukrainian flags at the front door. Kharkiv is one of several cities across eastern Ukraine where demonstrators with a generally pro-Russian tilt held rallies and raised Russian flags. The rout occurred during an otherwise peaceful rally in Kharkiv’s Freedom Square, where tens of thousands of people gathered in the morning to protest against the Maidan revolution. A series of small explosions in the square triggered an angry reaction from the crowd. Hundreds of protesters broke through a police barricade around the regional government building and attacked the occupiers. The assault on the building was “completely spontaneous,” said Denis Levshinko, a sociology student who participated in the rout of the Maidan occupiers. “We are all fed up with them. We united and we chased them out.” Levshinko said the protesters clashed with about 500 occupiers, armed with sticks and baseball bats, inside the government building. Many of the activists were taken captive and dragged onto the street, where, forced to their knees, they apologized to the jubilant crowd. “Beat them, that’s the right thing to do,” shouted one woman. “They should not even be alive.” “They’re drug addicts,” said another. “You only have to look at their eyes to see they are no better than frozen vegetables.” Gennady Kernes, the mayor of Kharkiv, called for calm in an address to the demonstration early in the day but left the square when the attack began. In Donetsk, the hometown of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, protesters raised a Russian flag on the local administration building. By acclamation, they declared the commander of the Donbass People’s Militia, Pavel Gubarev, to be the new regional governor, according to the Interfax news agency. But by 3 p.m. the square where the rally took place had emptied. Russian flags also were reported raised by protesters in Yevpatoria, in Crimea, and in Melitopol and Mariupol, which are on the coast of the Azov Sea to the northeast of Crimea.

MOSCOW — The Russian military took up residence in Crimea more than 200 years ago, when Catherine the Great built a naval base at Sevastopol. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia and Ukraine tussled repeatedly over dividing up the Black Sea Fleet based there. Today, Russia rents its Sevastopol base from Ukraine, where it has a presence better suited to bullying small neighbors than fighting a real war, according to Mark Galeotti, author of “Russian Security and Paramilitary Forces Since 1991.” Galeotti, a professor at New York University who blogs about security issues, answered a series of questions about Russia’s military. **Q. How strong is Russia’s Black Sea Fleet?** **A.** As a war-fighting force, it’s not particularly impressive. Its main vessel was basically built to fight other ships and so is only useful in fighting a naval war. It’s got the Moskva, an aging guided-missile cruiser; a large anti-submarine warfare cruiser — very dated; a destroyer and two frigates, which are more versatile; landing ships; and a diesel attack submarine. It’s not a particularly powerful force. The Italian navy alone could easily destroy it. **How capable is Russia’s military overall?** It’s moderately competent. It’s not at the level of the American or British or German military, but it’s better than in the 1990s. The [Russian] military is good at bullying small neighbors, but it would not be effective against NATO. It would not be able to defeat China. **Why was it effective against Georgia?** The Black Sea Fleet had some value against Georgia because it was fighting a small navy. The Russian military could roll into Ukraine, but it would be up for a fight. The Ukrainians are rather more ready than the Georgians. **What does Russia want in Crimea?** If Russia wanted to conquer the place, they could conquer the place. But what would it gain by claiming formal control over this region? It doesn’t add up to me as being a takeover. It’s a martial and heavy-handed political maneuver to make sure Kiev considers Russia’s interests. **Where are the Russian bases?** The main one is the fleet headquarters and naval infantry brigade headquarters at Sevastopol. There are four coastal missile regiments, four different bases. There are at least a dozen active bases on the Crimea. Some are just communication towers. Others are real bases. For example, there are several air bases. **How is the Russian deployment regulated?** The treaty between Ukraine and Russia limits the total size. Russia can’t just add another ship to the fleet. They can’t arbitrarily attach more units. **Can you describe the troops?** The 810 Naval Infantry Brigade has 2,500 marines. They’re not elite, but they are better than average. They acquitted themselves well in Georgia and fighting pirates off Somalia. There are also some naval special forces. It’s hard to be sure, but maybe 200 to 300. They may not be Green Berets, but they’re pretty good. There’s a large Black Sea Naval Air Force and ancillary groups — technical, security, administrative. You can put a gun in many of their hands, if need be. If you need people to block a road, they can do it. **Are troops often seen on the highways in Crimea?** There’s nothing to stop them from moving troops around. You have slosh back and forth twice a year because of conscription. The sight of military personnel on the road is not unusual as they move between bases. And obviously they move back and forth to Russia. **How many bases does Russia have outside its borders?** They have a presence in Cuba. It’s not really a base. It’s a way station. And Tartus, in Syria. They have no bases outside the former Soviet Union.

KIEV, Ukraine — Moments before the nominees for Ukraine’s new cabinet were introduced to protesters in Independence Square, eight pallbearers walked through the crowd at the base of the stage, past the mountains of flowers and votive candles lit in memoriam, carrying in an open coffin one of those who died fighting the old government. Deafeningly, thousands shouted, “Hero! Hero! Hero!” into the night. It was a stark message to the politicians gathering onstage: This is our revolution. These were not your sacrifices. Don’t play political games the way they’ve been played here for the past 20 years. That was Wednesday. By Saturday, Ukraine’s new leaders were engulfed in the full-blown Crimea crisis, facing a powerful adversary in Russia. How they handle it could determine whether the revolution is snuffed out in the starting gate. Even if they survive the Crimean emergency, Ukraine is facing an extraordinarily difficult road ahead. The country has no money. The bureaucracy is riven with corruption and incompetence. The radicalization of the Maidan protesters over the past three months has left them unwilling to trust anyone who was a politician previously, even those in the opposition. Converts to the cause are suspect. A toll of more than 90 dead, by the latest count, has not left people in a forgiving mood. “I’ll be in Kiev a long time,” said Volodymyr Parasyuk, 26, who just over three months ago was making wedding videos in Lviv, in western Ukraine. Now he’s in camouflage, a member of one of the protesters’ self-defense groups and still on the Maidan, as Independence Square is known. “I’ll be here for the building of the government, the building of the country — but doing it right. When this is a normal country, a democratic one, I will go home.” Parasyuk had his moment of fame Feb. 21. That was the night President Viktor Yanukovych and the three main opposition political leaders signed a compromise that would have allowed Yanukovych to remain in office until new elections in December. When Vitali Klitschko, head of the opposition UDAR party, went to the Maidan to explain its terms, Parasyuk burst past a guard, got onstage and grabbed the microphone. Yanukovych had to go — right away, he declared, to the cheers of the crowd. It was a powerful expression of will and a humbling moment for Klitschko. And, as it turned out, the Ukrainian president fled Kiev the next day. If he had stayed in office for 10 more months, Parasyuk said, “there was a strong possibility we’d all go to prison.” The people on the Maidan are reviving a word that the Czechs used after their Velvet Revolution of 1989: lustration. In this sense it means discovering — and purging — those in the government who were associated with Yanukovych’s illegal acts. Lustration should not be used for revenge, its advocates say, but to ensure that the people most responsible for the brutal attempts to crush the protest be removed from positions of authority. But on the street, protesters call for lustration of members of parliament, too. “There are a lot of politicians who were for the regime we fought against, then quickly changed their minds,” said Konstantin Bravo, a member of Parasyuk’s group. “The key question is, where were you before? People are demanding that everyone guilty be judged in court — and quickly, before people start forgetting about it.” A question, though, is how far lustration can be pursued as emergencies crowd in. There is no easy answer. Yanukovych ruined government ministries by stocking them with loyalists on the take, said Igor Burakovsky, head of the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting here. “So how do you make them work now?” Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the new prime minister, has inherited a state that is weak, corrupt and inefficient, Burakovsky said. The official economic numbers are terrible; the real numbers are probably worse. Ukraine’s budget is in deficit, and although the government projects a 16 percent increase in revenue in 2014, to a total of about $45 billion, its income has been declining since last year. Foreign reserves are almost gone. Gazprom, the Russian energy giant that supplies all of Ukraine’s natural gas, said Friday that Kiev has fallen behind on its payments by $1.5 billion. On top of all that, Ukraine is embarking on a quick presidential election, scheduled for May 25. That means that for the next 2½ months, candidates will be doing everything they can to persuade voters that Yatsenyuk’s government is doing a lousy job. (Yatsenyuk is not a candidate.) “I have worked and paid taxes all my life,” said an electrician in Kharkiv, in the Russian-speaking east, who gave her name only as Sveta. “What do I care if my money lines the pockets of Yanukovych or someone new who comes to power? It won’t make any difference. I’ll still have to struggle to live off my pension.” That comes to less than $100 a month — and the new government will struggle to keep up with the payments. Ukraine’s crisis began over a trade deal with Europe. Parasyuk, back in Lviv, thought the agreement would be good for him and his country and believed Yanukovych when the president said he would sign it. Then, under pressure from Russia, Yanukovych backed out at the last moment — and the way it was done, without warning, was like a slap in the face, Parasyuk said. He went to Kiev with his father on Nov. 24. The crystallizing moment for him came six days later, he said, when police brutally beat a group of students. But Parasyuk’s upbringing had prepared him for the role he was going to play. Every summer he had attended camps run by Ukrainian nationalists, where he was taught history and skills such as marksmanship. It was like the Boy Scouts, he said. Western Ukraine, once the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia, was never part of the Russian empire and came under Moscow’s rule only as a result of World War II. A hero there is Stepan Bandera, who raised an army to fight the Soviet invasion of Galicia during the war. In eastern and southern Ukraine, which suffered terribly under the Germans, Bandera is considered a Nazi collaborator and traitor. A banner with a large portrait of Bandera hung next to the Maidan stage for months, leading to the inevitable charges in Crimea and elsewhere that the protesters were “Banderites” and fascists. One of Parasyuk’s grandfathers fought with Bandera. The other? He was a Soviet soldier. The revolt against Yanukovych was not simply west against east. By the end, the president had little support anywhere. And the distrust of politicians is widespread, too. “It’s a power grab by one clan from another,” said Alexander Serdyuk, a law student in Kharkiv. The question is whether the divide — in language, sensibility, historical memory — will reassert itself in the hazardous months ahead. “There is a lot of pain in the hearts of our people,” said the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi. “And there are so many illusions.” A council of prominent activists called the Circle of Trust has formed on the Maidan. It has drawn up a list of seven conditions that must be met before the Maidan protesters go home. They include the arrest of Yanukovych, the lustration of police and courts, and constitutional changes such as the right to bear arms, tax reforms and “dividing business from politics.” Getting all of that would be an astonishing achievement, even without crises. What Ukraine needs now, Sadovyi said, are “time, the truth and God’s grace.” Isabel Gorst in Kharkiv contributed to this report.

The tea party movement celebrated its fifth anniversary this past week, but there’s been little to celebrate lately about the performance of some of the conservatives running under the tea party banner who have mounted primary challenges to half a dozen Senate Republicans. In Texas, a poll by the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune showed Sen. John Cornyn running away from Rep. Steve Stockman, 62 percent to 16 percent. Their primary will be Tuesday. At this point, the challenge to the incumbent looks like a big fizzle — to no one’s surprise. In Kentucky, businessman Matt Bevin, the tea party candidate challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has been trying to square his praise for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in late 2008 with claims that he would have opposed the TARP program — which McConnell supported — had he been in the Senate at the time. In Kansas, Milton Wolf, a radiologist who is trying to unseat Sen. Pat Roberts, had to apologize this past week after the Topeka Capital-Journal reported that he had posted X-rays of gunshot wounds on his Facebook page a few years ago and then made jokes about them. In Mississippi, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who is trying to defeat Sen. Thad Cochran, has had a rocky time after recently telling Politico’s Alex Burns that he wasn’t sure whether he would have voted in Congress for Katrina relief funds after the 2005 storm devastated his state. “That’s not an easy vote to cast,” he told Burns. The outcome of the challenges to these incumbent Republican senators (and two others in South Carolina and Tennessee who also face challenges) will be one measure of the balance of power inside a party divided between its establishment and insurgent wings. The tea party movement continues to have a significant effect on the Republican Party, pro and con. Without its energy, it is questionable whether Republicans would have made such large gains in 2010. But after a series of misfires with tea party candidates who proved not ready for prime time in the past two elections, and because of the unhappiness over the tea party’s role in helping force the partial shutdown of the government last fall, the GOP establishment has decided to fight back. The tea party challengers hope to tap into the grass-roots anger on the right against both Washington careerism and the party’s congressional leadership. At an earlier time, many of them would have scratched for resources to mount serious challenges. Today they can look for help from an array of outside conservative groups (some more effective than others) such as the Senate Conservatives Fund, the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, the Madison Project, the Tea Party Patriots, Tea Party Nation or the Tea Party Express. Establishment GOP leaders have tried to step carefully through their divided party. They are understandably skittish about antagonizing tea party activists, whose enthusiasm will be needed in the general election this fall, when the party tries to take control of the Senate from the Democrats. But they have been outspoken in their dislike for the outside groups for backing candidates challenging their incumbents. Establishment Republicans looking to reassert their power see these primary battles as one place to start. “Winning speaks volumes,” said Brad Dayspring, communications director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, an organization whose dual responsibilities are to defeat Democrats and protect GOP incumbents. “It’s as simple as that. Results matter. Candidates who run good campaigns matter. At the end of the day, in politics as in business, the proof is in the pudding.” Asked what’s at stake for the tea party movement in these races, Russ Walker, national political director of FreedomWorks, said: “The insurgent limited-government movement really has succeeded, regardless of whether they win or lose these challenges, simply because these candidates are being challenged. It’s rare they get challenged, and it’s rare they have to come up and defend their records.” “I know that the Republican establishment thinks that if they win a few races and defeat a few conservatives that the conservative movement is going to fold up its tent and go home,” said Matt Hoskins, executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF). “That represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the conservative grass roots and what drives them. . . . I think that they’re more panicked about it than ever before and they’re more hostile than they’ve ever been before.” At this point, these challengers appear to be running uphill. The major outside groups have not backed anyone in the Tennessee race against Sen. Lamar Alexander. In South Carolina, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham faces several primary challengers, but none has yet made serious headway. A recent poll showed Graham with 45 percent among GOP voters; not one of his opponents was in double digits. In Kentucky, McConnell has to worry about both a primary contest and a serious general election challenge from Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. FreedomWorks, the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Madison Project are among those backing Bevin. The Club for Growth has not endorsed. The embarrassment over what Bevin had said about TARP earlier, when he was running an investment firm, has raised questions about how thoroughly the outside groups have vetted these challengers. When asked whether the SCF team knew about Bevin’s previous position on TARP, Hoskins said, “We knew Matt Bevin was opposed to the Wall Street bailout and that has not changed.” Walker of FreedomWorks said he wasn’t sure whether the group’s research team had known about the problem. Of all of the incumbents with challenges, Cochran in Mississippi is seen as potentially the most vulnerable. Cochran is an old-school legislator who was elected to the House in 1972 and to the Senate in ’78. In an interview with a Mississippi television station last month, he admitted that the tea party was something that “I really don’t know a lot about.” It isn’t surprising, therefore, that many of the leading outside groups have jumped into that race behind McDaniel. Establishment Republicans in the state, including former governor Haley Barbour, have hit McDaniel over the Katrina comment. McDaniel has tried to repair the damage. His campaign quickly issued a statement saying he would have supported the funding, but he has stirred more controversy by suggesting there was considerable waste and fraud in the use of those funds. Cochran’s support is broad but may be soft. McDaniel, despite his missteps, still presents a potentially serious threat, particularly because he can count on the outside groups for help in fundraising, for independent expenditure ads and for some limited grass-roots organizing. “Ten years ago a guy like this wouldn’t have any money,” said one Republican strategist who backs Cochran but spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to offer analysis of the race. “They give him a fighting chance.” Leaders of these outside groups acknowledge that defeating incumbents is, by definition, difficult but worth it to keep the party on a conservative path. “We’re risk-takers,” said Chris Chocola, a former Indiana House member who now is president of the Club for Growth. “Our candidates are never the front- runner. If they were, we wouldn’t endorse them. Our win-loss record isn’t what our members judge us by. . . . If they don’t win, better to have fought and lost than not fight at all.” That makes the continuing struggle for power inside the Republican Party one of the most important story lines of the 2014 elections.

When the Food and Drug Administration approved a medication called Sovaldi in December, it was hailed as a breakthrough in the fight against hepatitis C, a blood-borne disease that affects 3.2 million Americans and kills more people in the U.S. annually than AIDS. Then California-based Gilead Sciences, the manufacturer, announced the price: $84,000 for a 12-week course, more than what many cancer treatments cost in a year. The hefty price tag has rattled patient advocacy groups and insurance companies, who say most costly new treatments coming on the market are targeted for a smaller patient population. Putting such a premium on a drug that could help so many will be crushing, they say. At least one prescription drug plan is encouraging doctors to delay prescribing Sovaldi for patients who can wait. One insurer has said it risks bankruptcy if it’s required to cover the drug for everyone who needs it this year. Advocates say Gilead has taken corporate greed to new levels. The drug has also prompted a new round of hand-wringing over a larger issue: the escalating cost of specialty drugs, which are designed to treat chronic illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis and sometimes require special handling. While these therapies are delivering body blows to some of the world’s most pernicious diseases, they also are testing the limits of what society is willing to pay for sought-after treatments or cures. “The advancements that are coming in medicine are going to be stunning and amazing, both in terms of the kinds of things we can treat that we never could and what their cost is going to be,” said Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. “We’re going to need to think as a country about how do we value health and health care.” In the past, treating hepatitis C was not always successful and involved lengthy treatment with injectable drugs that had significant side effects. By contrast, Sovaldi promises to cure nearly all sufferers with a once-daily pill that has far fewer side effects. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called hepatitis C an undeclared public-health crisis, affecting as much as 2 percent of the adult U.S. population and killing 15,000 Americans a year. It is caused by a virus and is typically transmitted through blood contact, such as dirty syringes. Many people contracted the disease through blood transfusions before routine testing of donated blood for hepatitis C began in 1992. The disease can go undetected for years and can eventually lead to cancer or cirrhosis of the liver. It is particularly prevalent among baby boomers. Federal health authorities recommend that everyone born between 1945 and 1965 be tested for the disease. Ronni Marks, 60, of New York City contracted the disease from one of the many blood transfusions she underwent since childhood. After two unsuccessful treatments in the past that caused debilitating side effects, she began a course of Sovaldi and two other drugs this year. “Hopefully these are the wonder drugs they say they are,” she said. When a friend asked Marks for a photo of the slim, yellow pill — a single dose costs $1,000 — she snapped a picture of it on a blue background. “She said that it looked like it was taken on a Tiffany’s box,” Marks said. “I joked that it should have been, considering the price.” In a statement to The Washington Post, Gilead said the price is fair because it is a significant improvement from previous treatments and it is not more expensive than the old treatment. It said it has had a good response from insurance companies agreeing to cover the drug. Gilead added that it offers a generous assistance program to help low-income people get the drug at a low cost. The fact that Sovaldi actually cures hepatitis C gives it an advantage over other types of therapies, allowing the company to price it higher, said Kenneth Kaitin, director of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, an independent nonprofit research group at Tufts University. “It is legitimately a big deal,” he said. He noted that several other companies also are developing therapies for hepatitis C and that Gilead wants to lock in an aggressive price before it faces tougher competition. Still, the price has provoked an outcry from the insurance industry, as well as from state Medicaid directors who say taxpayers will have to shoulder much of the cost of the drug because many with hepatitis C get their health care from the government through Medicare, Medicaid and the prison system. Molina Healthcare, a company that operates Medicaid ­managed-care plans for 11 states, has told state officials it cannot bear the cost of covering the drug. The company, which gets a flat fee from states for each Medicaid recipient, negotiated its 2014 rates before the FDA approved Sovaldi. It is asking states to pay for the drug separately and is deciding whether to cover the drug at all. “We can’t absorb this kind of a hit,” said chief executive J. Mario Molina.“It would cause us and other health plans to potentially become insolvent.” Express Scripts, the nation’s largest prescription drug benefit manager, has said it is encouraging some doctors in its networks to delay prescribing Sovaldi for hepatitis C patients who can safely wait. It is the first time the company, which helps employers keep down the prescription drug costs for their employee health plans, has asked doctors to avoid a drug because of the cost. The company hopes that when rival hepatitis C drugs hit the market, the increased competition will drive down costs. “We have a public health crisis that’s been identified in hepatitis C. We now have a drug that is wonderful in its promise,” said Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans. “But the pricing of this drug for a public health crisis doesn’t match the situation.” Lena H. Sun contributed to this story.

President Obama spoke for 90 minutes with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in what appeared to have been a testy exchange reflecting an escalating battle of wills and growing international tension over Ukraine. Obama expressed “deep concern” over Russia’s “violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity . . . [and] breach of international law,” the White House said. He called on Putin to pull Russian forces, now reportedly spread across Crimea, back to their bases in the autonomous Ukrainian region, according to a White House statement, and made clear that Russian refusal would lead to suspension of U.S. participation in planning for the upcoming Group of Eight summit in Sochi, Russia, scheduled for June, and “greater political and economic isolation.” Putin gave little ground, according to a Kremlin account of the telephone conversation. Calling the Ukraine situation “extraordinary,” he charged that Ukrainian “ultranationalists,” supported by the U.S.-backed interim government that took over last week in Kiev, were threatening “the lives and health of Russian citizens and the many compatriots” living in Crimea. “In the case of any further spread of violence to Eastern Ukraine and Crimea,” a statement issued by Putin’s office said, “Russia retains the right to protect its interests and the Russian-speaking population of those areas.” Obama and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who also placed a phone call to Putin, urged the Russian leader to open an immediate dialogue with Ukraine’s new leaders and permit international monitors to assess the situation on the ground. Kremlin statements did not mention the proposal for monitors. Putin’s office said he told Ban that if the violence did not cease, Russia “would not be able to stay away and would resort to whatever measures are necessary in compliance with international law” to protect the Crimea’s Russian-speaking population. Saturday night, Canada announced it was pulling its ambassador from Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine. A statement issued by Prime Minister Stephen Harper after an emergency Cabinet meeting said Canada also will boycott meetings ahead of the G-8 economic summit being chaired by Russia in June. Reports from Crimea have described violence going both ways, as demonstrators from the area’s Russian-speaking majority have attacked activists backing the new government, and vice versa. At an earlier emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, the second in as many days, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the dispatch of international observers from the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was the best way to “get the facts, monitor conduct and prevent any abuses.” Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev, agreed. But in an impassioned address and in later remarks to reporters, he charged that Putin’s government, which on Saturday requested and got approval from the Russian parliament to use military force in Crimea, was being disingenuous. Russian troops, he said, “were already there” and had been deploying across the region for days. Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s U.N. ambassador, offered to the council a dramatically different definition of the problem and how to resolve it. He blamed outside intervention from the West for “whipping up” demonstrations that led to last week’s ouster of Ukraine’s Russian-backed government. Problems began, Churkin said, only after President Viktor Yanukovych decided to postpone steps toward Ukrainian membership in the European Union. “Why did this problem have to result in street demonstrations?” Churkin asked. “Why [were the demonstrations] encouraged from abroad . . . by people from the E.U.?” They, and not Russia, he said, were responsible for “crude interventions in the internal sovereignty of Ukraine.” “How to get out of this situation? We need cooler heads to prevail,” Churkin said. He repeated a call made by Russia last week to return to the terms of a Feb. 21 agreement between Yanukovych and the pro-Europe opposition that would have allowed him to stay in power until the end of the year at the head of a national unity government. The new government, he warned, had been taken over by “radicals” whose “actions could lead to very different developments, which the Russian Federation is trying to avoid.” Russia has also questioned the impartiality of Robert Serry, a senior U.N. official dispatched by Ban to Ukraine last week on a fact-finding mission. Serry said Saturday that he was unable to comply with Ban’s instructions to travel to Crimea. After getting in touch with the pro-Russian Crimean government, he said in a statement, he had “come to the conclusion that a visit to Crimea today is not possible.” “In Crimea, I would have conveyed . . . a message for all to calm the situation down and to refrain from any actions that could further escalate an already-tense environment,” Serry said. Meanwhile, E.U. foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton called for an “extraordinary” meeting of the E.U.’s Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on Monday. As the administration has tried to coordinate its response to the crisis with European allies, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said via Twitter that he had summoned Russia’s ambassador to London for a meeting and that he had consulted by telephone with his German counterpart. Although Ukraine’s interim government called for implementation of a 1994 security pact it signed with the United States, Britain and Russia — and Hague said Britain supported consultations under the terms of that agreement — U.S. officials gave no indication that a military response was being considered. In the “Budapest Memorandum,” under which Ukraine transferred its Soviet-era nuclear weapons to Russia for disposal, signatories pledged to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity and submit any dispute to consultations among them. Obama’s call to Putin came after a lengthy White House meeting of the president’s national security advisers. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel telephoned his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, and Secretary of State John F. Kerry called interim Ukraine president Oleksandr Turchynov, U.S. officials said. The White House statement about the Obama-Putin call said the United States had “consistently said that we recognize Russia’s deep historic and cultural ties to the Ukraine and the need to protect the rights of ethnic Russian and minority populations with Ukraine.” “The Ukrainian government has made clear its commitment to protect the rights of all Ukrainians and to abide by Ukraine’s international commitments, and we will continue to urge them to do so,” the statement said.

Richard L. Matteson, a professor of human development who taught at the University of Maryland for three decades, died Feb. 13 at his home in College Park, Md. He was 85. The cause was cancer, said his wife, Ann Matteson. A specialist in sociology, Dr. Matteson taught at the university’s Institute for Child Study at the undergraduate and graduate levels and retired about 20 years ago. Richard Lewis Matteson was born in Columbia, S.C., and was an Army veteran of the Korean War. He was a 1952 graduate of Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. At the University of Maryland , he received a master’s degree in sociology in 1956 and a doctor of education degree in human development in 1962. Dr. Matteson was a Boys Club coach and volunteered at halfway houses in Prince George’s County and through the Junior Great Books program at Hollywood Elementary School in College Park. He belonged to the University United Methodist Church in College Park and sang in its choir for almost six decades. He also sang in the Academia Notes, a barbershop quartet, for 35 years. Dr. Matteson collected Native American artifacts and donated an arrowhead to the Smithsonian Institution, his wife said. Survivors include his wife of 61 years, Ann Swann Matteson of College Park; four children, Richard L. Matteson Jr. of Port St. Lucie, Fla., David Matteson of Silver Spring, Md., Suzanne Matteson of Poolesville, Md., and Jeffrey Matteson of Luling, Tex.; five grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. **** **— Emily Langer**

William B. Griffith, who was a philosophy professor at George Washington University for 50 years, died Feb. 10 at George Washington University Hospital. He was 77. He had complications from a fall, his wife, Patricia Griffith, said. Dr. Griffith joined the GWU faculty in 1964 and held an endowed chair as the Elton professor of philosophy and public policy. He devised and taught more than 30 courses during his tenure, with a special emphasis on ethical theory, philosophical aspects of public policy issues, economic justice and logic. He was teaching a graduate course in economic justice at the time of his death. He was chairman of the philosophy department four times, for a total of more than 20 years, and had been director of the graduate program in philosophy and social policy since 1988. Dr. Griffith was a leader in the university’s faculty senate and had chaired most of its major committees. He was known for his advocacy of faculty and student rights and also served as a faculty liaison to the university president and board of trustees. William Byron Griffith was born in Fort Worth and was a 1958 graduate of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. After studying at the University of Louvain in Belgium on a Fulbright scholarship, he received master’s (1962) and doctoral degrees (1963) in philosophy from Yale University. He served in the Army before joining GWU. Dr. Griffith had dozens of publications in scholarly journals. He was a member of the D.C. selection committee of Fulbright scholars and the American Civil Liberties Union. He lived in Washington’s Shepherd Park neighborhood, where he was a member of a community organization that promoted racial integration and fair housing. Survivors include his wife of 53 years, Patricia Browning Griffith, a GWU English department faculty member, of Washington; a daughter, Ellen Flannery Griffith of Gaithersburg, Md.; a sister; and a granddaughter. **— Matt Schudel**

Bruce Nash, the longtime manager of Alexandria Floral Co., died Feb. 15 at the Cherrydale Health and Rehabilitation Center in Arlington County. He was 62. The cause was respiratory failure because of complications from Guillain-Barré Syndrome, said his wife, Mindy Nash. Mr. Nash began working at 15 in the greenhouses at the shop that became Alexandria Floral Co. He later worked in floral design and retail and was promoted in 1974 to manager, a position he held until his retirement in 2003. Since the mid-1970s, Mr. Nash had taught in the horticulture program at Northern Virginia Community College’s Loudoun Campus. David Bruce Nash was born in Alexandria, Va., where he graduated from Edison High School in 1969. He received a bachelor’s degree in horticulture from Virginia Tech in 1974. Mr. Nash was a Springfield, Va., resident. He volunteered and taught classes and seminars at the Green Spring Gardens park in Alexandria, also serving on the Friends of Green Spring (FROGS) board. He was a frequent speaker at local garden clubs and other venues. His first marriage, to Lauranne Close, ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 26 years, Mindy Stephenson Nash of Springfield; his mother, Betty Nash of Lawrenceville, Ga.; and a sister. **— Emily Langer**

Grace M. Chace, a secretary in Boston and Bethesda and a onetime business teacher at Hampton University, died Feb. 13 in the Chevy Chase, Md., home where she had lived since 1945. She was 106. Her son William Chace said the cause of death was inanition, after she stopped eating and drinking. Mrs. Chace moved to the Washington area in 1941 and was a legal secretary in Bethesda during her early years. Grace Elizabeth Murdough was born in Boston, where she was a 1928 graduate of Simmons College. She was a legal secretary in Boston, then relocated to the Hampton Roads area of southeastern Virginia, where she taught business courses at what is now Hampton University. She was active in community organizations in Chevy Chase and played the piano. Her husband of 39 years, William E. Chace, died in 1975. Survivors include three sons, William Chace of Palo Alto, Calif., Paul Chace of Sunnyvale, Calif., and Jonathan Chace of Chestertown, Md.; five grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. A son, David Chace, died in 1969. **— Bart Barnes**

Dean Smith celebrated his 83rd birthday on Friday. In all likelihood, there wasn’t much of a celebration. Smith is suffering from dementia and only occasionally is aware of what is going on around him. No one deserves such a fate, but anyone who has ever known Smith finds it especially galling that this disease would befall _him_. “Of all people, for it to happen to him is beyond cruel,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said recently. “You’re talking about the person who had the sharpest mind and the most remarkable memory of anyone I’ve ever met. It’s just not fair.” If he could, Smith would undoubtedly tell people not to shed tears for him, that he’s lived a great life and there are people who are suffering far more than he is suffering. There’s not a self-pitying bone in Smith’s body. When his memory began to fail, it frustrated him because he was so accustomed to being able to find anything in his memory that had ever been there — even if it had been only for an instant. The first time I ever saw him have difficulty recalling something was in 2005. I was interviewing him for a book I was writing on the Final Four and he had trouble remembering the name of a coach he had met the first time he went to the national semifinals as Frank McGuire’s assistant coach at North Carolina. Dean Smith reaching for a name and not finding it was slightly more stunning than waking up to find the sun rising in the west. “My memory’s slipping,” he said. “I forget things now.” He had just turned 74, so a little memory loss didn’t seem like a big deal. “Most people would kill to have 50 percent of your memory,” I said. “We’ve been talking an hour. This is the first thing you couldn’t remember.” He shook his head, still upset. “I know,” he said. “But that _never_ happened in the past.” He was right. Dean Smith remembered every name, every game, every play in every game. He also remembered every call that went against him and anything written or said about one of his players or friends that he thought was a slight — real or perceived. He never asked me how my kids were. He asked how Danny and Brigid were. But his memory was only a tool — an impressive one — and nothing more. His true greatness lay in his loyalty, in his passion, his compassion and his selflessness. He was appalled in 1986 when he learned that the new basketball arena at North Carolina was going to be named the Dean E. Smith Center. “They should name it for the players,” he said. “I never scored a single point.” Such a name would have been unwieldy, but there was no doubt he meant it. The only thing he ever enjoyed pointing out in the building was the bust of him in the main lobby. “Look at the plaque,” he would say, pointing to the plaque underneath the bust of him. It said: “Dean E. Smith . . . 1931- ” “They’re just waiting to fill in the second number,” he’d say, gleeful because in spite of his God-like status in North Carolina, he could point out tangible evidence that those who had built the building named for him knew he was mortal. No coach ever genuinely cared about his players — from Michael Jordan to walk- ons who never scored a point — more than Smith. He had one firm rule that Linda Woods, his longtime assistant, knew had to be followed to the letter: If any player — _any_ player — showed up in his office needing to see him, she was to interrupt whatever he was doing, regardless of who he might be talking to. No one came before the players. It wasn’t a credo or a motto; it was a way of life. He was also as competitive a human being as has ever lived. It wasn’t just in basketball. He was almost ruthlessly competitive on the golf course, even when playing with close friends. He might have despised losing an argument even more than he despised losing a basketball game. As with basketball, he won a lot more than he lost. There’s one story that — to me — defines him. I’ve told it in the past, but it bears re-telling. In 1981, Smith very grudgingly agreed to cooperate with me on a profile for this newspaper. He kept insisting I should write about his players, but I said I _had_ written about them. I wanted to write about him. He finally agreed. One of the people I interviewed for the story was Rev. Robert Seymour, who had been Smith’s pastor at the Binkley Baptist Church since 1958, when he first arrived in Chapel Hill. Seymour told me a story about how upset Smith was to learn that Chapel Hill’s restaurants were still segregated. He and Seymour came up with an idea: Smith would walk into a restaurant with a black member of the church. “You have to remember,” Reverend Seymour said. “Back then, he wasn’t _Dean Smith_. He was an assistant coach. Nothing more.” Smith agreed and went to a restaurant where management knew him. He and his companion sat down and were served. That was the beginning of desegregation in Chapel Hill. When I circled back to Smith and asked him to tell me more about that night, he shot me an angry look. “Who told you about that?” he asked. “Reverend Seymour,” I said. “I wish he hadn’t done that.” “Why? You should be proud of doing something like that.” He leaned forward in his chair and in a very quiet voice said something I’ve never forgotten: “You should never be proud of doing what’s right. You should just do what’s right.” That’s what Dean Smith has done his entire life. There isn’t a single player who played for him between 1962 and 1997 who wouldn’t run through fire and a brick wall for him. It has nothing to do with the games he won. It has everything to do with each of them knowing he would do the same — and more — for them. Recently, I asked Larry Brown, who played on the first team Smith coached at North Carolina, what one thing made Smith so special to all those who knew him. Brown thought for a moment. “He’s the single most decent man I ever met,” Brown said. That’s a wonderful way for anyone to be remembered. On the night Cal Ripken Jr. retired, he told a packed house at Camden Yards that he had thought often about how he wanted to be remembered. “What I finally concluded,” Ripken said, “is that to be remembered at all is enough.” Dean Smith can no longer remember all the lives he touched. But he should be remembered every single day — on his birthday, today and forever. For more by John Feinstein, visit washingtonpost.com/feinstein.

Martin E. Sloane, who championed against discrimination in employment and housing as a longtime official with the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, died Feb. 12 at the Washington Home hospice. He was 85. The cause was pneumonia, said his daughter Phoebe Sloane. Mr. Sloane worked with the rights group from 1973 to 1987, initially as general counsel and later as executive vice president. He testified before Congress on employment discrimination and equal education opportunities and wrote extensively in reports on residential segregation and mortgage credit discrimination. Martin Everett Sloane was born in the Bronx. He was a 1949 graduate of New York University and received a master’s degree in English from the University of Michigan in 1950. After serving in the Army Counter Intelligence Corps, he graduated from Columbia University Law School in 1958. Early in his career, he was chief of the housing section at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a lawyer-adviser at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and an assistant staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Office of Program and Policy Review. He was a District resident and, in retirement, continued to advocate for fair housing by representing tenants in their grievances against the D.C. public housing agency. Survivors include his wife of 61 years, Glenda Goldberg Sloane of Washington; three daughters, Jessica Sloane of Takoma Park, Md., Amy Sloane of New York and Phoebe Sloane of San Diego; a brother; and four grandchildren. **— Zach C. Cohen**

**POOLESVILLE,** Sugarland Road, 15000 block, Feb. 14. Investigating an allegation that five horses were being neglected, animal services found that the animals were in excellent condition, wearing blankets that protected them from the weather, and had access to food, water and shelter. When asked why someone would make such an allegation, the horses’ owner said that an argument with someone earlier in the week might have been the catalyst.

Ninety minutes before sunrise, here she comes, down the stairs and into the living room of her Suitland townhouse. Denise Rush, who is blind, walks carefully, remembering her way to the couch. “Hello, Moshi,” she says. Moshi is the brand name of the talking clock on the half wall near her kitchen. “Welcome,” Moshi replies. “Command, please.” Rush, 62, settles on the sofa, waiting for a van to arrive out front. “Time,” she says. “The time is 5:25 a.m.” The Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson, where Rush works as a transcriptionist, is 11 miles away, in Dupont Circle. She was hired by the giant law firm 34 years ago, long before diabetic retinopathy stole her eyesight. Back then, amid her confusion and sadness, she was consumed by worries, not the least of which was a practical concern: Unable to drive, how would she commute to her job? In her living room, groping a bit, she finds her phone on a shelf behind the couch and punches in numbers she knows by heart. “Good morning,” a computer voice says, “and welcome to MetroAccess.” After Rush enters her pass code, the voice confirms the ride reservations she made the evening before: As usual, a Metro paratransit van will pick her up at the townhouse within a half-hour window starting at 5:38 a.m., and another will arrive at Steptoe & Johnson between 3:30 and 4 p.m. to ferry her home. “My lifeline,” she says of the service, which began in 1994. Mandated by the Americans With Disabilities Act, MetroAccess is vital to many of its 32,000 users, people who are not physically capable of riding Metro’s buses or trains or who might feel frightened doing so because of their disabilities. For Rush and others, it’s a key to an active, fulfilling lifestyle, allowing them to avoid becoming shut-ins or burdens to their families. “This is our connection to the outside world,” she says. “We don’t have to sit in the dark and just wait and hope someone comes and takes us somewhere.” Without transportation, Rush says, she could not keep her job, and losing her job would mean losing her health insurance and possibly her home. “You can call MetroAccess and go do your banking. You can go to a movie. You can go to the store. I can go to eat in Silver Spring and my friends don’t have to come all the way to Suitland and get me.” Brewing coffee in the kitchen, her boyfriend of two years, Albert Freeman, glances out a window and sees headlights in the darkness, a van pulling up. “They’re here,” he announces. Rush gets up from the sofa, dons her coat, gathers her tote bags. “You have five minutes to board or they’ll leave you,” she says under her breath. Tap-tap-tapping her long white cane, she moves through the foyer, passing her clock of the way out. “Hello, Moshi.” “Welcome. Command, please.” “Time.” “The time is 5:41 a.m.” In the open doorway, braced by the cold morning air, Rush smiles. “See? They’re right on time.” ****In the universe of MetroAccess patrons, Rush is fairly well-off financially, with a comfortable income and an array of job benefits. A lot of other riders, suffering from dire health problems, are not able to work. They get by on Supplemental Security Income payments and rely on the van service to drive them to hospitals and medical offices for frequent treatments, including chemotherapy and dialysis. With Metro’s board of directors almost certain to raise rail and bus fares starting in July, MetroAccess customers, the agency’s most transit-dependent constituency, have been complaining more loudly than other commuters. The fee for a MetroAccess trip is double whatever the fare would be for a bus or subway ride between the same two points, up to a ceiling of $7. Traveling to and from her workplace costs Rush $7 each way, which won’t change. But for those who typically pay less than the maximum fee, many of them desperately poor, the cost of riding MetroAccess will increase as rail and bus fares go up. And it will increase by twice the amount. “People who can’t afford it, they only have so much money,” Rush says, seat-belted in as the van bounces along Silver Hill Road in the predawn. She’s the only customer aboard this morning. “They’ve got to buy their medicine, so how do they pay their fare? Do they go to dialysis today and not Friday? Do they go Friday and skip today? What do they do? Because we’re not talking about recreation. We’re talking about survival.” Before landing a job at Steptoe & Johnson, Rush was an impoverished single mother in the 1970s. “Lived in my car for a while,” she says. Last year, she joined Metro’s Accessibility Advisory Committee, to advocate for MetroAccess. And it’s no secret that she puts money in the fare accounts of several destitute people who rely on the service. “I want this system to work for everyone, for those who can’t pay for all the . . .” As the van turns sharply right, Rush halts in mid-sentence and yells to the driver, Arlene Thomas, who is new on the job. “Ma’am! _Ma’am_! You took the wrong exit!” Thomas, braking on a narrow access road, starts to reverse course. “I know these turns,” Rush says to her, and then she laughs. “I can tell by how it feels.” The van is one of 600 MetroAccess vehicles owned by the transit agency. The drivers work for three contractors hired to run the service. Like the transit systems in Philadelphia, New York, Boston and elsewhere, all of which are required by federal law to provide shuttles for the disabled, Metro loses money on paratransit. In the current fiscal year, the agency projects a demand for 2 million MetroAccess trips, which will cost $114 million and generate less than $8 million in revenue. “Guess I turned a little too soon,” Thomas says, back on Silver Hill Road now. She turns again a moment later, correctly this time, onto Suitland Parkway. “All right, there you go,” Rush says. “You can’t tell, but we have an extra sense. I can’t see, but I always know where I am.” And she is sure proud of it. “I mean, you couldn’t never kidnap me.” “She is just extremely dedicated,” Patrick Sheehan, the accessibility committee chairman, who also is blind, says of Rush. “Compassionate. Articulate. She’s an advocate not only for herself, but a lot of other people. And she’s in­cred­ibly effective.” Rush’s biggest issue at the moment: When the transit agency’s board of directors votes on fare increases this year, she wants MetroAccess riders to be spared a price hike. Freeman, her 65-year-old boyfriend, whom she has never seen, is a retired construction worker who often drives her where she needs to go. But Rush says it would not be fair for him to make two 20-mile round trips every weekday so she could keep working at Steptoe. “Before any of this, all I ever knew was, I thought blind people kind of just sat in the corner and kept quiet,” Rush says. “And I didn’t want that.” Without MetroAccess, without the freedom it provides, she says, “I guess I’d just be sitting home. I’d just be dead in the water.” She says, “It’s the oxygen I need to breath. It allows me to live.” Known as “the African Queen” (simply “Queen” to her friends), Rush dresses almost exclusively in vibrantly colored, ankle-length robes and matching head scarfs. She was diagnosed with diabetes as a young woman and was told by doctors that she would probably go blind. She lost the vision in her left eye in 1998. Then, on the morning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the world for her went entirely dark. “I was staring at the TV,” she says, recalling when her right eye failed. “The last thing I saw was the towers fall, the first one, and that was it.” Doctors also have warned her that someday she probably will need dialysis treatments. After 18 ocular surgeries in the late 1990s and early 2000s that accomplished little, and after extensive occupational training, learning to use voice-activated word-processing equipment, she settled into the job she holds now. Lawyers at the firm leave audio recordings for Rush, which she transcribes into legal documents. Caroline Laurin, a Metro spokeswoman, says disabled people who are eligible for van service but would rather use buses and trains are offered individualized instruction. Whether they are visually impaired, use wheelchairs or are disabled in other ways, they are taught to safely navigate the fixed-route system, which they can use for free. Hundreds of customers try every year. But not all succeed. “Oh, you know, I did my best,” Rush says. “They came out here to Steptoe and we walked up there to the Dupont Circle station for the travel training. Some people can do it, some can’t. And I mean, I was terrified down there, people all rushing around, bumping into each other. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t. And they could tell.” So instead, here she is in a van, out in the world, headed to a job she enjoys, a sightless woman who in some ways sees just fine. “Okay, if you don’t mind,” she says to Thomas, “once you get up here, your GPS is going to try to take you through the ’hood. We don’t need to do that. The GPS is going to want you to turn right. Just keep straight.” The driver’s smile flashes in the rear-view. “I’m going to make it a smooth ride,” Rush tells her. “All right,” Thomas says. “I appreciate it.” They roll along in silence for a while, until Rush says, “Now up here, it’s going to want you to turn right onto the freeway. Don’t do that, either.” And Thomas says: “You know what? We’ll go any way you want.” Get updates on your area delivered via e-mail

For much of his time in office, President Obama has been accused by a mix of conservative hawks and liberal interventionists of overseeing a dangerous retreat from the world at a time when American influence is needed most. The once-hopeful Arab Spring has staggered into civil war and military coup. China is stepping up territorial claims in the waters off East Asia. Longtime allies in Europe and in the Persian Gulf are worried by the inconsistency of a president who came to office promising the end of the United States’ post-Sept. 11 wars. Now Ukraine has emerged as a test of Obama’s argument that, far from weakening American power, he has enhanced it through smarter diplomacy, stronger alliances and a realism untainted by the ideology that guided his predecessor. It will be a hard argument for him to make, analysts say. A president who has made clear to the American public that the “tide of war is receding” has also made clear to foreign leaders, including opportunists in Russia, that he has no appetite for a new one. What is left is a vacuum once filled, at least in part, by the possibility of American force. “If you are effectively taking the stick option off the table, then what are you left with?” said Andrew C. Kuchins, who heads the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I don’t think that Obama and his people really understand how others in the world are viewing his policies.” Rarely has a threat from a U.S. president been dismissed as quickly — and comprehensively — as Obama’s warning Friday night to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. The former community organizer and the former Cold Warrior share the barest of common interests, and their relationship has been defined far more by the vastly different ways they see everything from gay rights to history’s legacy. Obama called Putin on Saturday and expressed “deep concern over Russia’s clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, which is a breach of international law,” the White House said. From a White House podium late Friday, Obama told the Russian government that “there will be costs” for any military foray into Ukraine, including the semiautonomous region of Crimea, a strategically important peninsula on the Black Sea. Within hours, Putin asked the Russian parliament for approval to send forces into Ukraine. The vote endorsing his request was unanimous, Obama’s warning drowned out by lawmakers’ rousing rendition of Russia’s national anthem at the end of the session. Russian troops now control the Crimean Peninsula. There are rarely good — or obvious — options in such a crisis. But the position Obama is in, confronting a brazenly defiant Russia and with few ways to meaningfully enforce his threat, has been years in the making. It is the product of his record in office and of the way he understands the period in which he is governing, at home and abroad. At the core of his quandary is the question that has arisen in White House debates over the Afghan withdrawal, the intervention in Libya and the conflict in Syria — how to end more than a dozen years of American war and maintain a credible military threat to protect U.S. interests. The signal Obama has sent — popular among his domestic political base, unsettling at times to U.S. allies — has been one of deep reluctance to use the heavily burdened American military, even when doing so would meet the criteria he has laid out. He did so most notably in the aftermath of the U.S.-led intervention in Libya nearly three years ago. But Obama’s rejection of U.S. military involvement in Syria’s civil war, in which 140,000 people have died since he first called on President Bashar al- Assad to step down, is the leading example of his second term. So, too, is the Pentagon budget proposal outlined this past week that would cut the size of the army to pre-2001 levels. Inside the West Wing, there are two certainties that color any debate over intervention: that the country is exhausted by war and that the end of the longest of its post-Sept. 11 conflicts is less than a year away. Together they present a high bar for the use of military force. Ukraine has challenged administration officials — and Obama’s assessment of the world — again. At a North American summit meeting in Mexico last month, Obama said, “Our approach as the United States is not to see these as some Cold War chessboard in which we’re in competition with Russia.” But Putin’s quick move to a war footing suggests a different view — one in which, particularly in Russia’s back yard, the Cold War rivalry Putin was raised on is thriving. The Russian president has made restoring his country’s international prestige the overarching goal of his foreign policy, and he has embraced military force as the means to do so. As Russia’s prime minister in the late summer of 2008, he was considered the chief proponent of Russia’s military advance into Georgia, another former Soviet republic with a segment of the population nostalgic for Russian rule. Obama, by contrast, made clear that a new emphasis on American values, after what were perceived as the excesses of the George W. Bush administration, would be his approach to rehabilitating U.S. stature overseas. Those two outlooks have clashed repeatedly — in big and small ways — over the years. Obama took office with a different Russian as president, Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s choice to succeed him in 2008. Medvedev, like Obama, was a lawyer by training, and also like Obama he did not believe the Cold War rivalry between the two countries should define today’s relationship. The Obama administration began the “reset” with Russia — a policy that, in essence, sought to emphasize areas such as nuclear nonproliferation, counterterrorism, trade and Iran’s nuclear program as shared interests worth cooperation. But despite some successes, including a new arms-control treaty, the reset never quite reduced the rivalry. When Putin returned to office in 2012, so, too, did an outlook fundamentally at odds with Obama’s. Just months after his election, Putin declined to attend the Group of Eight meeting at Camp David, serving an early public warning to Obama that partnership was not a top priority. At a G-8 meeting the following year in Northern Ireland, Obama and Putin met and made no headway toward resolving differences over Assad’s leadership of Syria. The two exchanged an awkward back-and-forth over Putin’s passion for martial arts before the Russian leader summed up the meeting: “Our opinions do not coincide,” he said. A few months later, Putin granted asylum to Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor whose disclosure of the country’s vast eavesdropping program severely complicated U.S. diplomacy. Obama had asked for Snowden’s return. In response, Obama canceled a scheduled meeting in Moscow with Putin after the Group of 20 meeting in St. Petersburg last summer. The two met instead on the summit’s sidelines, again failing to resolve differences over Syria. It was Obama’s threat of a military strike, after the Syrian government’s second chemical attack crossed what Obama had called a “red line,” that prompted Putin to pressure Assad into concessions. The result was an agreement to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, a process that is proceeding haltingly. Since then, though, the relationship has again foundered on issues that expose the vastly different ways the two leaders see the world and their own political interests. After Russia’s legislature passed anti-gay legislation, Obama included openly gay former athletes in the U.S. delegation to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. New barbarities in Syria’s civil war — and the near-collapse of a nascent peace process — have drawn sharper criticism from U.S. officials of Putin, who is continuing to arm Assad’s forces. How Obama intends to prevent a Putin military push into Ukraine is complicated by the fact that, whatever action he takes, he does not want to jeopardize Russian cooperation on rolling back Iran’s nuclear program or completing the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. Economic sanctions are a possibility. But that decision is largely in the hands of the European Union, given that its economic ties to Russia, particularly as a source of energy, are far greater than those of the United States. The most immediate threat that has surfaced: Obama could skip the G-8 meeting scheduled for June in Sochi, a day’s drive from Crimea. “If you want to take a symbolic step and deploy U.S. Navy ships closer to Crimea, that would, I think, make a difference in Russia’s calculations,” Kuchins said. “The problem with that is, are we really credible? Would we really risk a military conflict with Russia over Crimea-Ukraine? That’s the fundamental question in Washington and in Brussels we need to be asking ourselves.”

Legislation that would raise the salary of the Prince George’s state’s attorney by 46 percent over several years is making its way through the Maryland General Assembly, but not without questions about whether the increase should go to the head of the office or the attorneys who try cases. The bill, which was among County Executive Rushern L. Baker III’s legislative priorities, has been approved unanimously by the county’s House delegation — and would benefit the current county prosecutor, Angela Alsobrooks, who is running unopposed in June’s Democratic primary. She also has no announced competition in the November general election. The incremental increases would start in 2015, bumping the state’s attorney’s annual salary from $150,000 to $195,000, a 30 percent increase. The salary would increase to $201,250 in the second year, $207,500 in the third year, $213,750 in the fourth year and $220,000 in the fifth year. Baker said that the bill has two main goals: to close the disparity gap in salary among the Prince George’s State’s Attorney Office and offices in jurisdictions with similar-size caseloads and populations, and to attract highly qualified and experienced candidates. Some union officials in Prince George’s and a government watchdog group said they support closing the gap in salaries. But the union officials in particular question the distribution of increases when funds available for raises are limited. “That is one heck of a raise,” said Dean Jones, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 89 in Prince George’s. “We believe that our assistant state’s attorneys are some of the lowest paid in the state. This is not to say anything bad about the assistants who are here and the job they are doing. But how can you attract the best attorneys . . . the best rank and file . . . if their salaries are not competitive. Why aren’t our elected officials fighting for raises for them?” Jones said that FOP Lodge 89, which represents more than 2,600 active and retired county police officers, lobbied to get raises for assistant state’s attorneys several years ago but that the efforts failed. Since then, Baker and Alsobrooks have worked to get increases for assistant state’s attorneys. The bill was sponsored by Del. Jolene Ivey (D-Prince George’s) on behalf of Baker (D). Ivey, who is running for lieutenant governor, said she had “serious concerns” about giving the state’s attorney a salary increase without doing more for the assistant state’s attorneys, who can choose to live and work anywhere. “The problem is, we are not competing regionally for a state’s attorney, but we are for the assistant state’s attorneys,” said Ivey, whose husband, Glenn F. Ivey, preceded Alsobrooks as the county’s state’s attorney. Indeed, a few delegates raised similar questions before the House Delegation voted on the legislation Feb. 21. One delegate pointed out that the current salary for the Prince George’s state’s attorney is the fifth highest in the state and that salaries for assistant state’s attorneys are the fifth lowest in the state. The bill was assigned to the Environmental Matters Committee, which has scheduled a hearing for Friday. Baker declined to be interviewed for this article. His spokesman, Scott L. Peterson, said in a statement that “this bill is not about Angela Alsobrooks, this bill is about equity.” State’s attorneys in four jurisdictions earn more than Alsobrooks. Baltimore’s state’s attorney makes $238,772, Montgomery County’s earns $199,000, Baltimore County’s earns $196,219, and Anne Arundel’s makes $155,530. Because there are no term limits on the office, Baker’s spokesman said, there is no “good” time to introduce the bill. John Erzen II, a spokesman for Alsobrooks, said that she “did not testify in any way on this particular bill.” Another of Alsobrooks’s representatives said before the House delegation that Alsobrooks supported Baker’s proposal. “For that reason,” said Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, executive director of Common Cause Maryland, “you cannot raise the issue of a pay raise without raising the other about whether the raise is for the incumbent.” Jones, FOP Lodge 89 president, said that some of his members will get merit raises next year. The amount varies depending on rank and experience, he said, but none will get pay increases. Gino Renne, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1994 Municipal and County Government Employees Organization, said that next year, about 500 employees of the county library system and the Park and Planning Commission will get raises of between 3.5 and 4 percent. “We support an increase in everyone’s earning capacity,” Renne said. “You have to have balance. You can’t establish wage scales one way for your front-line workers and another scale for management. There should be some relationship between the two.”

By all accounts, the George Washington men’s basketball team has virtually an airtight case for a berth in the NCAA tournament. Those credentials include nonconference wins against the likes of ninth-ranked Creighton, Maryland and Georgia and an RPI ranking that lingers around 30. Still, the Colonials (20-7, 8-5 Atlantic 10) are proceeding as if nothing is certain, especially given their seven-year absence from the sport’s showcase event coupled with the many surprises that often accompany Selection Sunday. So the priority over the final three regular season games is to secure a top four seed in the Atlantic 10 tournament and earn a bye into the quarterfinals. In fifth place entering Sunday’s game against George Mason at Smith Center, the Colonials are vying with VCU, Massachusetts and Saint Joseph’s for seeds 2-4, with Dayton and Richmond close behind them. “It’s important because it gives [players] the day off,” GW Coach Mike Lonergan said. “But I also told them, ‘Hey, we’re trying to make the NCAA tournament, and you’ve worked really hard.’ We’ve hit a rough spot here with the schedule being tougher and Kethan [Savage] being out. We’ve got to get back on track, and we’ve got a perfect opportunity with these last three games.” The Colonials have dropped three of four and are coming off a 66-59 loss to No. 10 Saint Louis, which was 12-1 in conference play entering Saturday night’s game at VCU. It was GW’s ninth game in a row without Savage, the guard who broke his foot and has not been in the lineup since Jan. 18 against Saint Bonaventure. The Colonials are hoping to get Savage back in time for the start of the Atlantic 10 tournament in less than two weeks. Before then, GW has a favorable closing stretch that includes two games against teams (George Mason, Fordham) that entered the weekend with a combined five wins in Atlantic 10 play. Its other game is Wednesday at home against Saint Joseph’s, which is in second place in the conference. On Jan. 25, GW beat the Patriots, 75-69, in the Colonials’ first game without Savage. Thanks to placing all of its starters in double figures, GW built a 16-point lead late in the second half on the way to capturing the first leg of the men’s basketball portion of the Revolutionary Rivalry. The first-year competition between the schools separated by less than 20 miles comprises 16 sports, with the winner claiming the newly created Tri-Corner Hat Trophy. The Patriots (10-17, 3-10), meantime, are near the bottom of the Atlantic 10 standings but have won three of five, including taking Saint Louis to overtime Feb. 19 in Fairfax before falling, 89-85. They also forced overtime against the Billikens in the first meeting on Feb. 1, an 87-81 loss. “We’re moving the ball and just taking better care of the ball,” George Mason Coach Paul Hewitt said. “We just started talking about making sure not to turn the ball over and getting shots.” George Mason most recently beat Richmond, 69-60, behind a combined 37 points from its senior back court of Sherrod Wright and Bryon Allen. The duo also combined for 41 points in a 91-80 road upset of Massachusetts on Feb. 12. The Patriots’ recent upswing has them in contention to finish no lower than 11th in the Atlantic 10, meaning they can avoid a de facto tournament play-in game on the event’s first night. The 12th- and 13th-place teams play each other in the first round and face potentially five games in as many days if either advances to the final. “We’ve got three games left, but for us seniors, we know it’s the last go-around,” Allen said. “For us to win, we’ve just got to give it our all each game like we’ve been doing the whole time.”

BOSTON — The Washington Capitals viewed the final stretch of the regular season as a fresh start, a chance to control their fate in the ever-tightening Eastern Conference playoff picture. In their first two games since the Olympic break, they have taken advantage of the opportunity. They engineered a 4-2 win Saturday afternoon over the Boston Bruins, the second-best team in the East, for their fourth straight victory, matching a season high set in early November. Alex Ovechkin scored a pair of power-play goals to become the second player in franchise history to hit the 800-point plateau for his career. While they nearly lost control of a multi-goal lead for the second time in as many games, the Capitals gutted out a win through timely defensive stands and opportunistic offense from Joel Ward and Eric Fehr. “Right now the guys have a desperate will to win,” said Fehr, whose breakaway goal 10 minutes 53 seconds into the third period accounted for the final margin and effectively crushed the Bruins’ comeback efforts. “We know where we’re at in the standings, and we know how important this month is. You can see it in the way we’re playing, We’re playing a little bit more desperate hockey.” The challenges facing the Capitals this month, during which they will play 15 games — all against teams still vying for a playoff spot — were clear in the early stages at TD Garden. The Bruins poked the puck off their sticks, picked off passes and made navigating a path through the neutral zone a difficult puzzle. The Capitals found themselves in trouble less than seven minutes into the contest when Jay Beagle and Tom Wilson were whistled for high sticking Milan Lucic and holding Torey Krug, respectively, on the same shift, giving Boston a two-minute, five-on-three power play. The penalty killers shined, cutting down shooting lanes and using well-placed clearing attempts to allow the Bruins only one shot on goal against Braden Holtby during the advantage. “It was a great kill. It wasn’t a fluke. We made a lot of huge plays,” said Holtby, who made 36 saves and has been in net for each of the four victories on this streak. “I didn’t know it was a five-on-three until I looked up at the faceoff. I just assumed it was a five-on-four. The guys did a great job.” With less than two minutes remaining in the opening frame, the Capitals caught a break when Chris Kelly was whistled for interference after sending Jason Chimera into the Bruins’ bench. Ovechkin scored his first goal of the afternoon from his familiar spot in the left circle on the ensuing power play, giving Washington a 1-0 lead with 1:21 to go in the first. The Capitals used the same formula at the start of the second period. On a rush up ice, Marcus Johansson, playing in his first game back after the Olympic break, sent a pretty drop pass to Ovechkin, who blasted a one-timer into the upper-right corner of the net for a 2-0 advantage. That goal was Ovechkin’s 800th point, making him the 150th player in NHL history to reach the milestone and the second Capitals player after Peter Bondra, who owns the franchise points record with 825. But Ovechkin was more concerned about the two points the team secured Saturday afternoon. “We just play more solid right now,” Ovechkin said. “We know we don’t have time to make mistakes. Every point right now is very important for us. That’s big two points.” Midway through the second, Joel Ward split the Bruins’ defense, skating in for a pretty backhander that beat Tuukka Rask for a 3-0 lead. The goal, his 18th, marked a career high for the big winger. But protecting a lead never seems to come easily for Washington. Chimera took a tripping penalty 24 seconds after Ward’s goal, and Patrice Bergeron put the Bruins on the scoreboard during the resulting power play. Less than seven minutes later, Boston’s fourth line converted when Shawn Thornton’s centering pass was inadvertently redirected past Holtby by Mike Green to make it 3-2. The Capitals handled Boston’s push in the third period well, though, and began winning battles along the boards and chipping the puck up ice to clear the zone — plays that didn’t come as easily two periods earlier. One such effort along the half wall wound up providing the insurance goal Washington needed. Fehr outworked Bergeron to push the puck into the neutral zone and sprung himself on a breakaway for the visitors’ fourth goal. “We always felt good as a group; we just had some lapses during games,” Ward said. “We’re still confident in ourselves. We just missed a little bit of swagger at times this year, and I think we’re slowly getting that back. Guys are realizing what’s at stake a little bit more, playing a little more desperate at times, and it seemed to show.” **Capitals note:** Martin Erat sat out with a lower-body injury after being injured when he blocked a slap shot against Florida on Thursday. **More on the Capitals:** **Capitals Insider:** Ovechkin records his 800th career point **Capitals Insider:** Five thoughts on Capitals-Bruins **Capitals Insider:** Temper expectations for Kuznetsov **Thomas Boswell:** Capitals are a cautionary tale for the Nationals

D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray attended a modest fundraiser last month at a home in Northwest Washington owned by an incarcerated real estate mogul with $36,000 in unpaid property taxes. Confronted by a neighbor as he entered the event, Gray said he was unaware of the homeowner’s debt — or even who he was. Vincent L. Abell, the owner of the home in arrears, wasn’t there. He was in jail on charges related to a years-long court battle over preying on homeowners facing foreclosure. Abell’s business associate, Aaron Hargove, who lives at the residence, was there, as was an H Street corridor businessman who was the evening’s official host. Gray campaign manager Chuck Thies said the campaign had no role in arranging the meet-and-greet, which garnered less than $1,000, a small addition to the more than $600,000 in campaign contributions that Gray (D) reported in January. “All we did was put it on the mayor’s schedule and, as with all events where contributions are possibly collected, we assigned finance staff to ensure proper protocol and compliance,” he said in an e-mail. The brick rowhouse at 1360 Taylor St. NW is one of 229 citywide with Abell’s name on it. According to online property records, Abell purchased the home in 2003 and began falling behind on tax payments in 2008. An attorney for Abell did not return a phone call or e-mail Friday, and there was no answer at his Northeast real estate business office. As Abell has continued to battle lawsuits in recent years, the property was sold three times under tax sales, but each time he later paid a portion required to regain control of the property. As of Friday, online records showed that more than $36,000 was owed. Hargrove, of Washington Realty Brokers, has worked for years with Abell. He dismissed the issue: “There are thousands of houses in the District that owe back taxes,” Hargrove said. “People have a right to pay taxes when they pay. If they don’t pay them, the house goes to tax sale — so what?” The home’s tax bill became an issue, Hargrove said, because neighbors oppose his work on a deal to bring a group home for troubled juveniles to Taylor Street. The squall over creating a group home at 1345 Taylor St. has been simmering since fall between Ward 4 residents, Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) and the city’s Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services. At issue is a plan to put a residential facility for as many as five juvenile detainees adjacent to Powell Elementary School. The juveniles could have records for offenses from theft to sex crimes. They would have to show promise of being able to thrive in a group-home setting, city officials said, and would wear ankle-monitoring devices. Bowser has been increasingly critical of the plan, holding a meeting with dozens of opponents and asking Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan to weigh in. He did, rebuffing the concerns and saying group homes are a protected class in the city and elected officials cannot discriminate in where they are located. More than 200 residents have disagreed. They signed an online petition opposing the home. In sometimes lengthy online comments, they say that Taylor Street is plagued by drug crime and that they fear for the safety of their children and property — not to mention the value of their homes. “We don’t think the city has given any consideration to the proximity to the school,” said Michael Waske. “I have a 3-year-old and more on the way. We would like to live in a safe place, and when parents go to work all day, they shouldn’t be worried that’s not the case.” Waske, Hargrove’s neighbor, was the one who confronted Gray from an adjacent porch. “You’re having a fundraiser at somebody’s house who hasn’t paid their taxes?” Waske asked. “Vincent Abell owns this house.” “Who?” Gray responded. “I don’t know who that is.” Waske’s wife shot a video of the encounter on her phone. Businessman Anwar Saleem, who hosted the event and selected the venue, said he found the house through Hargrove, a friend, who he thought owned the home. He said he had never heard of Abell.

**When I would visit my grandmother at Eighth and Kennedy streets NW I would see trucks delivering animals to a slaughterhouse. It was in the alley between Eighth and Ninth streets on the south side of Kennedy. This would have been between 1940 and 1945, when I was 8 or 9 years old. Around that time the slaughterhouse shut down and we would play in the closed facility. (Don’t recommend it today or even then.) One day it disappeared and a small apartment house was built. My question is: Did this place really exist? I am curious and have tried to research it but to no avail.** _**— Philip Mudd,** Bethesda_ On the morning of Feb. 2, 1933 — a Thursday — the students at the Petworth School, an elementary on Shepherd Street NW, were delighted by a break in their routine. Hundreds of children were playing in the schoolyard when they saw an animal galloping toward them. A rather large animal. A rather large, incensed animal. A bull. Delight turned to horror as the beast entered the yard, scattering the students, a group of firefighters on its tail. In its mad dash for freedom, the bull had hurdled fences, hedges and cars. The firefighters in pursuit were hampered for lack of that essential cowboy tool: a rope. When a rope was found, the bull was finally cornered and lassoed. A truck pulled up. It belonged to **Frank J. Miller** , the bull’s owner. The animal was loaded into the truck and driven back to 812 Kennedy St. NW, where Miller lived and worked as a butcher. “But the animal’s life will be spared for another day,” wrote a reporter for the Evening Star, “not for punishment, but because Mr. Miller said the meat would not be at its best until the bull cooled off.” Washington may have been a different city 70 years ago — smaller, with a more rural feel — but even then, a bull rampaging through its streets was unusual. So was an abattoir behind a rowhouse. Miller appears to have moved into the house at 812 Kennedy around 1909. At first, he only lived there, selling his meat at the Riggs Market. He was one of more than 200 purveyors listed under “Meat and Provisions” in the 1909 city directory, a list that included the intriguingly named Vegetarian Meat Co. (The Vegetarian Meat Co. didn’t sell meat but peanuts, peanut oil and something called Dr. Schindler’s Peanut Butter.) By 1930, Miller had consolidated his business operation to the stable behind his house. Answer Man can imagine how this made the neighbors feel. Everyone likes fresh steak, but they don’t necessarily like hearing the sounds or smelling the smells required for its preparation. Miller died in January 1940. That same year, the Brightwood Citizens Association lobbied the District health department not to renew the slaughterhouse permit. These days in Washington, meat is metaphor. We liken the legislative process to seeing sausage being made. But Washingtonians used to be able to see _actual_ sausage being made. The Gobel-Loffler plant on Benning Road — “birthplace of the famous skinless frankfurter,” according to an ad — slaughtered 4,000 to 5,000 hogs and 350 head of cattle every week in 1931. That same year, the Auth’s sausage packing plant was operating at 623 D St. SW. There was an Armour plant at 501 12th St. SW. Farm animals once roamed Washington, too, in such an unruly fashion that eventually city law prohibited keeping them south of Boundary Road, today’s Florida Avenue. That earned the neighborhood just north of there the nickname “Cow Town,” as practitioners of animal husbandry concentrated their operations just over the line. Cows and hogs came to be seen as nuisances, as would the places where they were dispatched, especially if, like Miller’s, the abattoirs or meat-packing plants were in residential areas. The rowhouse the butcher once lived in and the stable where he wielded his blade were torn down to make way for an apartment building that opened in 1959. Today’s D.C. schoolchildren may fear many things, but a rampaging bull is not among them. **Twitter: @johnkelly** Have a question about the Washington area? Write [email protected]_. For previous columns, visit _washingtonpost.com/johnkelly_.

After this bleak and blustery Washington winter, smile when you see these two words: **vernal equinox**. The astronomical start to spring — the vernal equinox — occurs at 12:57 p.m. Eastern time March 20, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. That’s the moment when the **sun** appears to cross the equator into the Northern Hemisphere. For the next three months, as our hemisphere gets its turn to tilt toward the sun, we’ll gain more light and warmth. Conversely, the Southern Hemisphere moves into autumn. As you thaw, catch a few bright planets. When night falls, the sky reveals that **Jupiter** still loiters in the **Gemini** constellation. It rises in the northeast just before 1 p.m. in the afternoon now, which means that by sunset, the fat, gaseous giant is already high in the southeastern sky. Jupiter is hard to miss at negative 2.4 magnitude (very bright). The portly waxing gibbous **moon** cruises under Jupiter on March 9-10. By the Ides of March, the planet crosses due south about 8:20 p.m. Like connecting the dots, draw a straight line from Jupiter down to **Sirius** , the Dog Star (negative 1.46 magnitude, very bright) in **Canis Major**. The large H-shaped constellation **Orion** stands to the west, or right, of that imaginary line. Colorful encounters: Our red neighbor, **Mars,** saunters through the sky in the **Virgo** constellation and is close to the blue star **Spica**. Mars, at zero magnitude and visible through the District’s light-polluted urban skies, rises about 9:30 p.m. now in the east-southeast. This planet remains visible throughout the night, as early risers can scope Mars in the southwest before sunrise. If you’re looking for rings, **Saturn** rises about midnight now, ascending the east-southeast. The planet will be nearly 30 degrees above the southeastern horizon about 3 a.m. Early risers can spot this other giant before sunrise in the southern heavens. Like a gem worn by Academy Award nominees, the planet **Venus** oozes radiance in the morning sky. Our gorgeous neighboring planet — the other neighbor — rises in the southeastern sky just after 4 a.m., and becomes high enough to see long before sunrise. It’s a negative 4.7 magnitude, very bright, around mid-month. The thin, waning moon passes Venus on the morning of March 27. You have a week to enjoy standard time: It’s nearly time to spring forward with our clocks, as we return to daylight saving time on March 9, when you move clocks forward one hour at 2 a.m. — which becomes 3 a.m. ● **March 3 —** “Stars Tonight,” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington. 7:30 p.m. $3. friendsoftheplanetarium.org. ● **March 5** **—** “MAVEN,” a talk by NASA’s Kelly Fast on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission. It launched last November and arrives at the red planet in September. At the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. View the heavens through telescopes, weather permitting. 8 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. ● **March 7** **—** “Heart of Darkness: Understanding the Invisible Universe of Dark Matter and Dark Energy,” a lecture by Jeremiah Ostriker, Princeton University professor emeritus. This is hosted by the Philosophical Society of Washington, at the John Wesley Powell Auditorium, adjacent to the Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW. 8:15 p.m. www.philsoc.org. ● **March 8** **—** “Rediscovering the Milky Way,” a lecture by Alyssa Goodman, Harvard University astronomy professor, at the Einstein Planetarium, National Air and Space Museum on the Mall. 5:15 p.m. airandspace.si.edu. ● **March 9** ******—** “Mars: A World Where Air Goes to Sleep at Night,” a talk by research scientist Timothy Livengood, at the regular meeting of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, Room 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. novac.com. ● **March 13** **—** “Living and Working in Space: Conducting Solar Observations from Skylab,” a talk by Owen Garriott, former NASA astronaut. 7:30 p.m. Lockheed Martin Imax Theater, Air and Space Museum on the Mall. airandspace.si.edu. ● **March 20** **—** “The Vernal Equinox: the First Day of Spring,” a program at the Montgomery College planetarium, Takoma Park, 7 p.m. montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/planet/. ● **March 20** **—** “When Chunks of the Universe Collide,” a talk by astronomer Simona Giacintucci, at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Scan the night sky afterward, weather permitting. 8 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse.

Only nine Marylanders have signed up for temporary, retroactive health insurance made possible by emergency legislation aimed at helping people who tried to get coverage through the state’s faulty online health insurance marketplace, encountered problems and were stuck with medical bills to pay. Two months ago, state officials predicted that as many as 5,000 people might need the help, which would have cost the state millions of dollars. Since then, the four health insurance companies participating in the state exchange offered their own retroactive insurance, helping about 300 households — and turning the state’s option into a last-resort for special cases. The small number of enrollees “is a sign that there are not so many people who are having so many challenges that they are going that route,” said Joshua Sharfstein, Maryland’s secretary of health and mental hygiene, at a budget hearing Wednesday. “We’ve been doing an enormous amount of work — a lot of elbow grease — to try to patch different parts of the system so that we can get through open enrollment.” But at budget hearings and an oversight meeting this week, a few lawmakers questioned whether the low number of is really a sign of success. Some asked what the state is doing to promote the option. Senate Minority Leader David R. Brinkley (R-Frederick) said Monday that he has diminishing confidence in the exchange’s ability to make any accurate predictions. On Friday, federal health officials announced they will bend some of their rules in the coming month to help those living in states where the exchanges that have not been working well, which could include Maryland. The government plans to help pay for certain health plans that consumers buy on their own — not through the exchange — and help make that insurance retroactive. Maryland was one of 14 states that decided to build its own online health insurance marketplace, a key feature of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, rather than rely on the federal version. But Maryland’s site crashed on its first day and has yet to work as planned, greatly hindering enrollment in private health insurance plans. As of Feb. 22, 35,636 Marylanders had enrolled in a private health plan through the exchange, far behind the original goal of having at least 150,000 people signed up by the end of March. Earlier this week, state officials announced that their goal was based on faulty research and that a better estimation is 75,000 to 100,000 people. Enrollment for those plans opened Oct. 1 and will close March 31. The next enrollment period, for insurance starting in 2015, will open Nov. 15. The exchange has been working better than when it first launched,with technology officials saying that they have fixed hundreds of glitches and continue to work on hundreds more. But when the New Year rolled around, thousands of Marylanders who needed health insurance were still without it. In early January, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (D) asked lawmakers to help those people. The administration proposed legislation to expand enrollment in a state-run insurance program — called the Maryland Health Insurance Plan — that was established a decade ago to help high-risk individuals who couldn’t get coverage elsewhere. People in dire need of health insurance could enroll in this program and receive coverage that is retroactive to Jan. 1 or the first day of following months. The premiums of these plans are often higher than in private plans, which was expected to motivate people to not stay for long. As lawmakers weighed that option, the four insurance companies participating in the exchange provided their own retroactive health insurance. For one week in mid-January, Marylanders could register to receive insurance that would be retroactive to Jan. 1. More than 1,300 households expressed interest. Of those, 562 were found to be eligible for Medicaid and nearly 300 households enrolled. All of those applications had to be manually processed and did not go through the exchange. Once that happened, state officials said there was less of a need for the state to also offer retroactive insurance, but they said there could still be a few hundred people who require the help. When O’Malley signed the legislation into law in late January, he said: “If it affects just one family, it is worth the effort, especially depending on the condition or the size of a hospital bill or other treatment bill incurred.” Carolyn A. Quattrocki, the exchange’s acting executive director, told lawmakers Monday that about 7,000 applications are still stuck in Maryland’s system. As for the exact number of people who are not getting the health insurance they seek, a spokeswoman for the exchange said Friday that they do not have “any reliable estimate.”

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Pakistani Taliban announced Saturday that the group will observe a one-month cease-fire as part of efforts to negotiate a peace deal with the government, injecting new life into a foundering peace process. Spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said in a statement e-mailed to reporters that the top leadership of the militant group has instructed all of its units to comply with the cease-fire. “Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has initiated talks with the government with sincerity and for good purpose,” Shahid said, referring to the group by its formal name. The leader of the government’s negotiating team, Irfan Sadiqui, praised the cease-fire announcement on Pakistan’s Geo Television, saying the government will review any written document from the Taliban about it. “Today, we are seeing a big breakthrough,” Sadiqui said. In recent weeks, Pakistani jets and helicopters have been striking militant hideouts in the northwest. Previous efforts at negotiations broke down when a militant faction announced it had killed 23 Pakistani troops. The Pakistani Taliban has been trying for years to overthrow the government and establish its own hard-line form of Islam across Pakistan. Tens of thousands of people have died in militant attacks. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has long promoted negotiations over military operations as a way to end the ongoing crisis. His efforts gained traction this year when both sides announced that negotiating teams had held initial meetings. But negotiations fell apart after the deaths of the 23 Pakistani troops, and Sharif has been under pressure to retaliate for any Taliban violence. Critics of the peace process say militants have used previous negotiations to simply regroup. They also question whether there is room to negotiate with militants who do not recognize the Pakistani constitution. In the past the militants have called for the removal of all military forces in the tribal areas as well as an end to U.S. drone strikes. A temporary cease-fire could be difficult to ensure. The Pakistani Taliban is not a unified organization, and some of the factions are not believed to support peace talks. Violence earlier Saturday showed how difficult it could be to enforce a cease-fire, let alone forge a peace agreement. Two bombs exploded minutes apart in northwestern Pakistan, striking tribal police assigned to guard polio workers and killing 11, police said. No one claimed responsibility for the two separate bombings, but anti-polio teams and their guards have been frequently targeted in Pakistan by Islamist militants. Also Saturday, a bomb targeting security forces in the southwestern province of Baluchistan killed three soldiers and wounded six, the paramilitary Frontier Corps said. **— Associated Press **

Mark Turgeon slid into a folding chair behind the baseline at Comcast Center for a more intimate media availability Saturday because most local reporters were either watching Maryland’s first spring football practice of the year, covering the Terrapins men’s lacrosse game against Duke or simply no longer following a men’s basketball team whose NCAA tournament hopes had all but evaporated. Behind him, guard Dez Wells was focused on free throws. Roddy Peters and Seth Allen were playing one-on-one, without the usual friendly trash-talk. The shooting machine, normally whirring on similar afternoons, was idle and silent. Over the past two weeks, the Terrapins have come so close to changing the course of their season only to see opportunity yanked away at the last moment. Last-second shots failed to connect against Duke and Syracuse. Heartbreak naturally threatened to derail the team’s psyche. So as the third-year coach surveyed the scene on the court, all of his players deliberate in their post- practice workouts, he glanced around as if to assess their morale. “No, we’ve got a confident group,” Turgeon said one day before Maryland’s last ACC road game at Clemson (17-10, 8-7). “They know if they do what they’re supposed to do, we have a chance. We thought we were going to win all those games when we were in them. But we didn’t.” Yet success still hasn’t arrived for the Terps after nearly three seasons under Turgeon, putting them at a unique crossroads. Down one avenue sits optimism, the bright side of single-possession losses to four teams projected to make the NCAA tournament field and the knowledge that seven total points have kept the season’s clearest goal out of reach. Down the other lurks gloom, born from the reality that Maryland likely needs to win the ACC tournament to avoid missing March Madness for the fourth straight year. Being mostly teenagers blessed with unconditional belief, the Terps (15-13, 7-8) have chosen to trudge down the former path, at least partially blind to their sub-.500 conference record, winless mark in six games against ranked teams and the prospect that they now are playing to earn favorable ACC tournament matchups and erect building blocks for future seasons but little else. “We’re always going to be aware,” forward Charles Mitchell said. “It’s one game at a time when you go into the tournament. You never know what’s going to happen. We’re playing for keeps. We still have to work on our seeding.” The coaches have helped divert their attention, too. During Saturday’s practice, assistant Bino Ranson told everyone, according to Turgeon, “We may be down on the scoreboard, but we’re getting better and we’re practicing and we’re playing better.” Motivational comments like that might not sit well with a restless fan base, but they underscore the approach being taken in College Park. The Terps are hanging on to confidence because positive results haven’t materialized and, once they lose their self-esteem, too, what then is the point? “It doesn’t affect us,” said Allen, who missed a deep three-pointer at the buzzer against No. 4 Syracuse on Monday night. “It shows how good we can be, minus dumb stuff like turnovers. It shows us the potential of us that we can make a run later in the season.” On the first day of March, as another monotonous, long break between games finished and the players left for their final road trip of this vexing season, the Terps feel they have improved over the past month. Though turnovers remain a thorny problem, their defense has been stingier and their offensive execution crisper. If Allen banks in his shot against the Orange and Mitchell coaxes a favorable roll from his baby hook against Duke on Feb. 15, then Maryland might be found on the NCAA tournament bubble. Instead, the team will try to find meaning from these final three games, hounded by the knowledge that, until something changes, the National Invitation Tournament might again be its destiny. “Kids are resilient,” Turgeon said, a phrase he has often repeated throughout this winter. “Do we like where we are? Absolutely not. Do we like the way we’re playing? Yeah, we’ve really played better.” More on college sports: Virginia blows out Syracuse to win ACC regular season title Feinstein: Memories of the ACC’s Dean Stinnett throws no-hitter for Maryland GW looks to get back on track Colonials women beat No. 21 Dayton Maryland begins spring football practice

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s parliament has voted to close private preparatory schools, many of which are a source of income and influence for an Islamic cleric accused by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of covertly seeking to topple him. Lawmakers on Friday set a deadline of Sept. 1, 2015, for the closures, news channels reported. Millions of students prepare at the centers for entrance examinations to win limited spots at state high schools and universities. Erdogan has accused cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former Erdogan ally whose followers wield influence in the police and judiciary, of concocting a graft scandal to compromise his government. The scandal broke with police raids on Dec. 17; relations between the men have been tense in recent years. “Pull your kids out, if they go to these schools. State schools are enough,” Erdogan said Saturday at a campaign rally in the western town of Denizli ahead of local elections set for March 30. “They have sucked like leeches. Leeches are more virtuous: Leeches suck dirty blood, while they suck clean blood and hold sessions cursing me, my wife, my children, my administration.” Followers of Gulen, who preaches respect for science, democracy and dialogue with other faiths, have forged a powerful ­socio-religious community network. However, Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, says he has no plans to form a political party and denies any involvement in the graft investigation. The government moved to shut down the exam preparation centers in November, worsening the public row with Gulen’s supporters. This month’s election is seen as a critical test of support for Erdogan after 11 years in power. Last week, audio recordings purportedly of Erdogan and his son Bilal discussing moving large sums of money and accepting bribes were posted on the Internet. Erdogan has said the audio was manipulated, and on Saturday he suggested that Gulen was behind the “conspiracy.” “Listening to my phone is forbidden. They listened to me, the president, my family,” Erdogan said at the rally. “Now they’ve been caught. We are going into their lairs. It will take time, but we will begin a new era with the votes we win on March 30.” Police used tear gas Saturday to disperse anti-government protests in Istanbul and the capital, Ankara. Such demonstrations have become frequent in city centers in the past few weeks. **— Reuters **

With Alyssa Thomas chasing two of the most revered records in Maryland women’s basketball history and less than a week from the senior’s final regular season home game, Terrapins Coach Brenda Frese couldn’t resist a little ruse at the expense of the two-time ACC player of the year. Frese brought Thomas to the floor of Comcast Center after a practice last week, saying the two needed to discuss an issue. That mysterious directive led Thomas to believe her coach was a tad cross. After allowing the two-time all-American to sweat a little, Frese informed Thomas she would be having her No. 25 jersey raised to the rafters Sunday afternoon following the ninth-ranked Terrapins’ game against Virginia Tech. “After the initial shock of thinking she was in trouble, she was honored obviously and extremely humbled,” Frese said. “Extremely surprised and wasn’t expecting it. A well-deserved honor and fitting that it takes place on Senior Day.” Thomas, whose counter prank was filling Frese’s office with 1,000 brightly colored balloons, will join the likes of Crystal Langhorne and Marissa Coleman in receiving the highest individual honor afforded a basketball player at Maryland. Statistically, Thomas already is in their company, needing 34 points break Langhorne’s all-time school scoring record. Thomas also needs 75 rebounds to pass Langhorne for first place and 22 assists to move into fifth. Averaging 18.7 points, a career-high 10.8 rebounds and 4.3 assists this season, Thomas is among four players in NCAA history with at least six career triple doubles. Her 60 double doubles are a school record. “I was in shock,” Thomas said when she first learned of the jersey ceremony from Frese. “I didn’t expect it to come at all, and just the way she did it, just hearing the news, it took me by surprise, but I was extremely happy.” Apart from Thomas becoming the ninth player to have her jersey raised, Maryland is chasing a host of team aspirations, including advancing to its first Final Four since winning the national title. The Terrapins also can secure the No. 3 seed in the ACC tournament with a victory over Virginia Tech and a North Carolina State loss to second-ranked and undefeated Notre Dame. The top four seeds receive double byes into the quarterfinals of the tournament that begins Wednesday in Greensboro, N.C., and avoid having to play potentially five games in as many days. Maryland (23-5, 11-4 ACC) enters its final regular season game having won seven of eight and three in a row, including a 92-66 victory over Boston College on Thursday night in its final road game as a member of the ACC. Next season the Terrapins, after 36 years in the league, are set to join the Big Ten in all sports. “As of now our confidence as a team, our chemistry as a team is just getting better,” center Alicia DeVaughn said. “Every practice, every game that we play, it’s just building toward [the postseason]. I’m very happy with where we’re at, so when we get to the tournament, our focus is going to be on that one goal.” DeVaughn and Thomas, who had game highs of 26 points and nine rebounds against the Eagles, are among five seniors who will be recognized before tip-off Sunday. The others are reserves Essence Townsend and Sequoia Austin and starting guard Katie Rutan, who tied a school record with eight three-pointers in an 87-77 win against Florida State Feb. 20 at Comcast Center. Townsend redshirted last season with a torn ACL, and Austin began her college basketball career as a walk-on before being awarded a scholarship. Rutan sat out one season after transferring from Xavier. “Four years ago as a freshman, I didn’t know what to expect,” Thomas said. “Now my jersey’s being raised to the rafters. I’ve had a lot of great experiences, met a lot of great people, and I couldn’t be happier with playing here at Maryland.”

With roughly two minutes to play Saturday afternoon and the George Washington women’s basketball team well on its way to a milestone triumph, graduate guard Danni Jackson was dribbling down the left side of the court at Smith Center as Colonials Coach Jonathan Tsipis put up both hands to slow the possession. Jackson disregarded that decree and lobbed the ball to sophomore forward Jonquel Jones, who scored on a routine layup. All Tsipis could do was smile as his charges were running back on defense, knowing full well the 88-79 victory over No. 21 Dayton belonged not to him but the players, particularly those playing their final home game. Among those was Jackson, who finished with 17 points and a game-high 12 assists, the second most of her career. Graduate guard-forward Megan Nipe had 18 points and six rebounds, and Jones finished with 22 points and a game-high 13 rebounds. Freshman forward Caira Washington added 18 points and 12 rebounds. “I think on a Senior Day, what a fitting way to have [Jackson and Nipe] be able to lead you right from the opening tip,” said Tsipis, in his second season at GW. “I know it was part of the decision-making process they went through to be able to be in a game like today and compete. We had the confidence that coming in here we weren’t going to give a game away. We were going to try to take it any single possible way we could.” In reaching 20 wins for the first time since 2007-08, George Washington concluded the regular season by winning four of five and seven of nine to secure a double-bye into the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 tournament. The Colonials finished tied for second in the conference but will be either the No. 3 or 4 seed in the tournament based on tiebreakers. They will play their tournament opener on Friday in Richmond. The Colonials (20-9, 11-5) beat Dayton, which had won 27 of 28 games in the Atlantic 10, for the first time sine 2009 and have defeated two ranked teams in one season for the first time since 2007-08, the last season of Coach Joe McKeown’s 19-year run in Foggy Bottom. GW beat California, 75-72, in November. “It’s really an exciting day for Meg and myself,” Jackson said. “We’ve been through so much here at GW, so to beat Dayton at home while they’re the number one seed in our conference and regular season champs, it felt really good. We can go through the stats that we had, but today was just a total team effort.” Especially in rebounding, where the Colonials held a 49-34 advantage, including 19-12 offensively. GW entered ranked first in the Atlantic 10 in both rebounding margin and offensive rebounding, and the Flyers were second in both categories. Dayton (21-6, 14-2) entered ranked first in the conference in three-point field goal percentage (45 percent) but missed 19 of 26 attempts against the Colonials. The Flyers shot 1 for 8 from beyond the arc during the first half while GW forged a 14-point lead on the heels of a 12-0 run. But Dayton closed the first half by scoring eight of the final 10 points before taking its first lead, 50-49, on Amber Deane’s basket with 14 minutes 9 seconds left in regulation. The Flyers had their largest lead, 56-53, when Andrea Hoover swished a three-pointer. The Colonials responded with six points in a row. Jones put GW ahead to stay with an offensive rebound and layup with 11:11 to play and followed that field goal with a turnaround jumper in the lane. “It’s a big game. It’s our last regular season game, and it’s Senior Day, so it’s all that rolled into one,” Nipe said. “But I think we prepared very well for it. We were well rested and had a game plan that was clearly effective. The second we stepped onto the court, it just felt right, and we were all ready to go.”

For Nina Brown, moving into her second home in an Atlanta suburb a decade ago was an act full of symbolism.¶ Homeownership was a way for Brown to prove she could strike out on her own after a divorce. It showed she had the finances — a good job and good credit — to provide a stable environment for her son, Jaylen. Moreover, with housing prices soaring, her purchase of a new townhouse in a gated community was a big step toward building a real estate investment portfolio and nest egg.¶ That was before tenants in two of the other three properties she owned lost their jobs and the grand plans she had for her life unraveled. ¶ At the age of 26, Brown found herself among the more than 5 million Americans who have lost their houses to foreclosure in the era of the Great Recession. And like many of them, Brown says she is not in a rush to jump back into the housing market. “I don’t have any intention of buying anytime soon. The economy is still unstable, and it could end up being a financial burden,” said Brown, now 33. She rents a three-bedroom townhouse in another Atlanta suburb, where she lives with Jaylen on weekends, and a small apartment in the District near Howard University, where she works during the week as an executive producer at WHUR-FM radio. Homeownership, once a cornerstone of the American Dream, has taken a big hit in public esteem, according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. In the past three decades, the number saying owning a home is “very much” how they define the dream has fallen to 61 percent, down from 78 percent in a 1986 Wall Street Journal poll. That year, owning a home was as emblematic of the American Dream as being free to live any way one chooses. The change in making homeownership a priority has opened up fissures that did not previously exist. In the new poll, there are apparent differences between men and women, young and old, and renters and homeowners, with the former in each example less concerned about ownership than the latter. Just 54 percent of African Americans, who suffered disproportionately heavy losses during the foreclosure crisis, now say homeownership is very much a part of the American Dream, among the lowest of any demographic group, according to the Post-Miller poll. But of all of these groups, renters — some of whom, like Brown, endured foreclosures — have become the most ambivalent. In 1986, three out of four said it was a big part of the American Dream. But the number plummeted in 2013 to 52 percent of renters, who are now 15 percentage points less apt than owners to put homeownership on a pedestal. By last year, the accumulation of foreclosures and short sales had pushed the homeownership rate down to 65.2 percent from its all-time high of 69.2 percent in 2005. Some experts are forecasting that this year it will drop to 64 percent, a 20-year low. “There are roughly 35 to 40 million renters, which includes millions who lost their homes in the crisis. They have to be viewing homeownership a different way,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “If you go back a generation ago, homeownership was essential to the American Dream. Now it’s tangential.” America was largely a nation of renters until Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Franklin D. Roosevelt made homeownership a top priority. “No greater contribution could be made to the stability of the nation and the advancement of its ideals than to make it a nation of homeowning families,” Coolidge said. Roosevelt put Coolidge’s vision into motion by establishing two agencies that were the forerunners of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in providing federal backing for mortgages. The move allowed financial institutions to significantly reduce down payments, interest rates and monthly payments to the point that, in many cases, owning was cheaper than renting. Then Roosevelt introduced the GI Bill, which paved the way for a dramatic expansion of roads, highways and sub- divisions in the suburbs to accommodate some 16 million World War II veterans with government-backed mortgages. As a result, the nation’s homeownership rate — the percentage of owner-occupied houses — soared from 43.6 percent in 1940 to 61.9 percent in 1960, according to the Census Bureau. Further government efforts to ease qualification standards boosted the rate to its peak by 2005. Then came the foreclosure crisis with which Brown is so intimately familiar. Standing at the black granite counter in the kitchen of the two-bedroom, two-bathroom basement unit she shares in Northeast Washington with three roommates, Brown sipped coffee and studied her rent bill. She picked up her iPhone and tapped on it with her thumbs. Every month, she divvies up the $2,300 bill and sends her roommates reminder texts to ensure it is paid on time. Brown had also been scrupulous about paying her bills prior to acquiring her four houses. But that didn’t stop her from losing them. Brown qualified for the mortgage on the Atlanta area townhouse based on her 750 credit score and $60,000 salary from her job as manager of a collection agency. It was her second house — a move-up property that was a step above the split-level starter home she and her husband had shared before the marriage dissolved. After getting the split- level in the divorce settlement, she made it a rental. She acquired two other income properties, one of which already had a tenant who received a Section 8 federal rent subsidy. Brown, who had dropped out of Georgia State University when she became pregnant with Jaylen, decided to leave the collection agency to go to broadcasting school to pursue a career in radio. The rental income and a $12,000 withdrawal from her 401(k) retirement account, she thought, would be her cushion during the transition. “I was not put on this Earth to manage [other people’s] bad debt,” she said. “When I got divorced, I figured I’m already doing something so drastic I might as well hit the reset button on everything.” But then tenants in two houses she owned lost their jobs and couldn’t pay the rent, leaving Brown to cover the mortgages. That left her no money to fund repairs at her third income property, which were required to continue the federal rent subsidy for her low-income tenant. Without the subsidy, she lost the tenant, resulting in the loss of three of her four properties. “For the first time in my life, I had anxiety attacks,” Brown said. “I had been a collections manager, and I never knew what it was like to be late on a bill.” By this time, she had landed an unpaid internship in Atlanta with radio personality Frank Ski. She loved the fun environment in the studio and saw radio as a powerful tool to entertain and inspire. Although she was inexperienced, Ski believed in her. He told her she had charisma and would go far. “I was so happy” working there, she said. But “as soon as I’d leave the station, the drama of these houses would be playing out.” One day in church, when she was seeking answers, she realized that there was nothing she could do to save the houses. With no income, her money would be running out soon. She moved into an apartment, stopped paying the mortgages and let three houses go. She eventually sold the fourth one at a loss. “I decided to focus on what I could control — my career,” she said. In the past decade, Brown has worked her way up from an unpaid intern to executive producer of the “Frank Ski Show,” overseeing every aspect of the show’s production and occasionally appearing on the air. Ski and a partner had the No. 1 morning show in Atlanta for 14 years before a disagreement with the station over the direction of the show took him off the air in 2012. Last year, WHUR invited Ski to fill the afternoon slot vacated when popular host Michael Baisden departed after a contract dispute with his syndicator. Listeners liked Ski, and last fall he persuaded Brown to come along. Now the team is laying the groundwork for a lucrative deal that would get the show picked up in numerous markets across the country. As they worked out gags in their small office at Howard University on a weekday this winter, Brown, comedian Joe Clair and DJ/engineer Herb Hawkins seemed a little like fictional comedy writers Rob, Sally and Buddy on the old “Dick Van Dyke Show” — three witty people quipping about what they observe in their daily lives, only more urbane and sometimes a little profane. Later, Brown said that living in the District has helped her get over any stigma she felt about no longer owning property. “In D.C., everybody rents,” Brown said. “I’ve got a lot of friends who make more than me who rent.” Brown said she’d like to buy a house if she ever gets married again. For now, the only problem she has with her two-city rental life is having to leave Jaylen, now 13, who is growing up too fast. As Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love” played on the show, Brown called her son to make sure he got home safely from school. Since it was a Friday, she told him she couldn’t wait to see him that night. Asked later about her priorities, she called up her Instagram page. “Never would I have thought this would be my life . . . in & out of airports, on & off of metro trains,” Brown said in the posting. “But then I reflect on my son’s face when he sees me on Friday night when I walk in from the airport & that hug he gives me that immediately gives me life.” With homeownership on the back burner, Brown’s American Dream is simply to be the best mother.

Some teachers in Fairfax County are planning to protest lagging salaries by cutting back on work that is outside of their contract, a move that could cause students to miss out on many extra after-school services that teachers provide. The protest — known as a “work to the rule” action — could mean serious hits to student programs in the wealthy county that boasts a premier school system, the nation’s 11th largest. Teachers have proposed a stoppage of science and art fairs, extra academic help and extra credit projects, travel, Advanced Placement test review and even e-mail and chaperoning proms. Perhaps most alarming to many parents, teachers also could stop writing recommendations for colleges, internships and academic academies. “Time-consuming college recommendations will be curtailed if not eliminated in full,” a group of McLean High School teachers wrote in an open letter to the community. “Transcripts alone will be forwarded to college admissions offices.” Concerned that teacher pay raises are in jeopardy as the county’s school board clashes with the Board of Supervisors over a tight budget, the faculty at McLean High says that teachers there “begrudgingly” are planning to eliminate the “extras” that take up much of teachers’ spare time, in protest. They think that average Fairfax teacher pay, which has slipped from tops in the region to middle of the pack as the county has struggled with its finances, has left them strapped for cash. “Time is our only remaining commodity, because it’s certainly not financial remuneration,” said Dean Howarth, a physics teacher who has worked at McLean High for 26 years and said that many teachers have multiple jobs to make ends meet and that some strain to meet a seemingly endless workload. “The things I enjoy doing I don’t think I can keep doing.” Fairfax County has long prided itself on its stellar public educational offerings, luring wealthy and prominent families in no small part because of its schools. But teachers say that the county’s economic woes have threatened the school system as budgets have been lean and teacher salaries have lagged behind other counties’. Fairfax used to lead the salary market for teachers, but in 2013, its average salary was sixth in the Washington region, just above Prince George’s County. Howarth said that the lack of significant pay raises and the current budget fight have pushed teachers to protest. He said other teachers around the county have been discussing actions similar to the one planned at McLean. Such protests can be risky, as they almost immediately affect students while making a broader point to the community. But they also can be effective — as they have been in Fairfax and nationwide — as it becomes clear how much teachers do beyond their contracted work day. A group of about 50 McLean teachers presented parents at a PTSA meeting in January with a list of activities and projects that the teachers say they might not be able to continue next year if proposed salary increases are not approved. McLean PTSA president Wilma Bowers said parents worry about the effects of the teachers’ planned protest. “They will be very concerned that services their children enjoy today will no longer be available,” said Bowers, whose daughter is a McLean High sophomore. For teachers, “this just demonstrates how desperate they are to bring attention to the issue. I would hope that it would not come to that.” Supervisor Jeff C. McKay (D-Lee) said the planned protest could work against the teachers as he considers how to handle the budget. “I think it’s a terrible tactic,” McKay said. “It sends the wrong message to the very kids they are trying to inspire. The victims in that situation will be the kids in our school system. . . . I think it’s downright unprofessional to tell you the truth.” Work to the rule actions date to 1979 in Fairfax County, when teachers protested for a 9.4 percent salary increase. Most recently, teachers participated in a work-to-the-rule day in April 2006 calling for higher pay; they received a 5.9 percent pay raise the following year. Now, Fairfax teachers are responding to years of stagnant salaries. From 2005 to 2009, teachers saw average annual cost-of-living and step increases of 5.4 percent. Since then, teachers have averaged a 1.4 percent annual increase, receiving a step increase once, in 2012, and two years of no increase at all, in 2010 and 2011. That has caused the average teacher salary at Virginia’s largest school system to drop in rank considerably, making the county less attractive to teachers than several of its neighbors in the Washington region. The average teacher salary in Fairfax this year is $67,245, while the average teacher salary in Arlington is $74,903 and the average in Montgomery County is $74,038, according to the Washington Area Boards of Education guide. Fairfax County schools superintendent Karen Garza, who has made salary increases a priority in her first year on the job, has requested a 5.7 increase in county funding, including $41 million in proposed salary increases. Under Garza’s plan, school staffers could receive a 2.5 percent raise, equal to an average $1,675 in extra pay for 95 percent of schools employees. But County Executive Edward L. Long Jr. proposed a 2 percent increase in county funding to the schools’ $2.5 billion budget last week. Garza said that 2 percent would not be sufficient to meet the schools’ needs, including the salary raises she has said are crucial to retain top-quality teachers. “It goes without saying that if the revenue to the schools remains at 2 percent, then there will be even deeper cuts on the horizon,” Garza said last week after Long presented his proposed county budget. Supervisor John C. Cook (R-Braddock) said teacher salaries are an issue for the school board, as that board decides how it spends its county allocation, which amounts to about half of the county’s expenditures. He noted that this year’s budget discussion has been more tense than in previous years. “I’m very disappointed with the tactics that the school board and superintendent are using,” Cook said. “I think what we all need to do is tone down a bit, but that’s not going to happen. I understand their concerns. But the tactics don’t help.” McLean teachers say they enjoy helping students after school with physics problems, hosting clubs and coaching sports teams. But they said they are reaching their limits, seeing their pay hold steady while performance expectations rise. “Teachers feel fed up,” said McLean parent David Edelman, who supports the teachers’ “work to the rule” proposal. Without additional funding from the county, “the situation is at a tipping point where we might see a decrease in the quality of our schools,” Edelman said. School board member Jane K. Strauss, whose Dranesville district includes McLean High School, said that expectations have evolved significantly for teachers in recent years. “The teachers are stressed,” Strauss said “What has changed for them is a tremendous work requirement that wasn’t there before.” McLean Principal Ellen Reilly said she supports her teachers but does not condone their proposed work to the rule action. “Our objective is to help children,” Reilly said. The proposal, she said, is “drawing a line in the sand and will ultimately affect the kids. I can’t stand by it. . . . The last thing I want to see is students getting hurt by this.” Fairfax Education Association president Kimberly Adams said that the teachers organization supports the McLean faculty’s efforts but does not think a work to the rule action is appropriate to use during the budget discussions. “FEA thinks it’s a positive tactic that has worked in the past,” Adams said. “But not right now.” Garza, who was a longtime schools administrator in Texas, has a history of offering teacher raises to keep staff happy and to entice talented teachers to come to her districts. One of the tactics for raising salaries has been to cut staff positions, something she has proposed in her current budget. While the county’s average teacher salary lags behind others in the region, it is still nearly $2,000 higher than the average Fairfax County government employee’s salary, which is $65,513, and higher than the average firefighter ($61,214) and librarian ($55,227) earn in a year. County spokeswoman Merni Fitzgerald said average salaries can’t be directly compared because teachers work fewer days per year than other county employees. Teachers have received, on average, a 3.4 percent raise annually during the past decade; a teacher earning $57,258 in 2005 — then the average salary — would now make about $79,600.

RICHMOND — While attorneys for former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell wrangle in court over felony charges that he and his wife, Maureen, illegally accepted luxury gifts and large loans, state lawmakers are wrapping up a session in which they have left open key loopholes that could allow a similar scandal to unfold. With just a week to go before its scheduled adjournment, the General Assembly has not passed the kind of sweeping reforms of Virginia’s lax ethics rules that Republicans and Democrats both said they wanted after the McDonnell revelations began, and they did little to address a host of other problems cited by advocates of deeper reform. They left untouched the state’s no-limit campaign finance culture, in which officials can take checks of any size as long as they’re disclosed. They let themselves and other state and local officials continue taking unlimited and undisclosed loans through companies they own. And although they passed bills banning some individual gifts greater than $250, they put no caps on the cumulative dollar value of gifts officials can receive from people with business before them. The House and Senate have passed different bills. They will work on a compromise over the next week, but neither bill addresses key loopholes. Lawmakers said it was more difficult than they expected to make far-reaching changes, in part because as they got into the details, they became concerned that imposing tough limits could end up inadvertently criminalizing their own honest mistakes. Top Republican and Democratic leaders also saw little benefit in publicly sparring over laws governing their own conduct and that of other statewide and local officials. They made a strategic decision to prioritize their own bipartisan unity over the ambition of their shared ethics package, which tamped down debate and undercut bolder initiatives. Another key hurdle is philosophy. Despite the desire to be seen as doing something post-­McDonnell, some of the powerful legislators who could have pushed for more comprehensive changes — but haven’t — remained intensely skeptical of the entire reform exercise. “The absurdity is, you can’t legislate ethics,” said Senate Majority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax). “Either you’re dishonest or you’re not, okay? It’s more window dressing. It’s an attempt to deal with stuff, maybe tighten up a few things here or there.” Saslaw said that states with strict laws on the flow of money in politics are still vulnerable to human nature, just as laws against murder and embezzlement don’t stop bad acts. And despite the McDonnell scandal, and the nine-year prison sentence given to a former ranking member of the House of Delegates in 2011 on bribery and extortion charges, he said Virginia’s record remains strong. “Look at all the laws that Maryland has. Every three years, one of them goes off to prison,” Saslaw said. “That doesn’t happen here. Do you know what it is? When you’re born, you’ve got a chip in your head, and it tells you what’s right and what’s wrong. And somewhere along the line, some of these chips go bad. That’s the problem.” That kind of resignation was not how the bipartisan ethics package was originally sold. “These are strong, comprehensive reforms,” read the statement from the Republican and Democratic House leaders. They did fix a glaring shortcoming, voting to make gifts to immediate family members of public officials subject to public disclosure. And they made disclosures more frequent. But if the pattern among legislators last year holds, the $250 gift limit that is the centerpiece of their reform agenda would have limited utility, according to an examination of gift disclosure data. If the proposed $250 limit on “tangible gifts” had been in place in 2013, only two gifts to legislators would have unambiguously been banned. Those were a $3,000 cash prize from the National Rifle Association’s political action committee and an iPad, according to Virginia Public Access Project data. A $400 discount on eyeglasses and two sets of jackets and prints, each with a combined value of $265, may also have been caught by the $250 limit. A key concern for legislators was the fear of tripping themselves up — or supplying their political opponents with ammunition for campaign ads. So their ethics bills made a distinction between tangible and intangible gifts and put no limits on the intangibles, including domestic and foreign travel, Washington Redskins tickets, meals and passes to Kings Dominion amusement park. “I think if we tried to ban that outright, we wouldn’t get a bill passed,” said Del. Jennifer L. McClellan (D-Richmond), who helped craft the legislation. “It’s better than nothing. . . . This is a good first step.” Many legislators argue that it’s too difficult to make a distinction between trips and entertainment that are largely work-related and those with more tenuous connections to their official duties. As a result, they want disclosure rather than dollar limits. Two weeks into the General Assembly session, on a day McClellan and other members of a House committee tweaked the fine points of their legislative gift language, McDonnell was two blocks away pleading not guilty. Lawmakers were reluctant to solve problems raised by the former governor’s behavior if it meant forcing themselves to reveal too much personal or business information. Take the issue of loans. According to the federal indictment, McDonnell spoke to Jonnie R. Williams Sr., then chief executive of dietary supplement maker Star Scientific Inc., about transferring tens of thousands of shares of company stock to McDonnell and his wife. But later, “because of concerns about disclosures that would be necessary,” the men agreed that Williams would instead “simply transfer $50,000” to a company owned by McDonnell and his sister. Under current Virginia law, McDonnell would have to disclose large stock holdings or a loan made directly to him, but not a loan to a company in which he held an ownership interest. But Del. Gregory D. Habeeb (R-Salem) said there was no agreement on how to solve that problem without a “huge expansion” in what must be revealed. “Should I have to report my law firm’s line of credit every year, because that’s a loan to a business I’m a party to?” Habeeb asked. Habeeb said that the McDonnell situation involved an elected official who set up a tiny company that served essentially as the governor’s “alter ego” and then was able to accept loans to his company without disclosing them. He called that a “very narrow situation” that the General Assembly had not yet figured out how to address without disrupting legitimate business loans. “We dealt with the other 99 issues,” he said. “And maybe that’s one we get going forward.” The U.S. Senate is among the political bodies that have come up with that language. According to a Senate description of its rules, “You are required to report any liability of any business, investment pool, or other entity, in which you, your spouse, or your dependent child have an interest, unless” they fall into one of three exemptions. Those include publicly traded entities and excepted investment funds. Also exempted: a liability that “is incidental to the primary trade or business of the entity.” Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), chairman of the Courts of Justice Committee that did detailed work on the ethics bill, said he suspects that McDonnell would have claimed that the loans were “incidental” to the business he owned with his sister. Still, Albo said, he’s open to the idea, although Senate leader Saslaw is opposed. The House did address alleged evasions by Maureen McDonnell. At issue is the present tense of the word “own” on disclosure forms. Under current law, filers must identify businesses in which they “own securities” valued at more than $10,000. (Both the House and Senate cut the disclosure threshold to $5,000 in their bills.) According to the indictment, Maureen McDonnell told her broker in December 2012 to open accounts for her children and to transfer thousands of shares of Star Scientific stock out of her own account “before year-end in order to avoid reporting requirements.” But the House added an additional tripwire, requiring disclosure not only for what is owned but also for what was “sold or otherwise transferred.” The Senate did not include that change in their bill. The House bill also bans some gifts to the governor and attorney general from parties involved in civil actions with the state, an issue with Star Scientific’s Williams. Trips and other intangible gifts would still be allowed. Another challenge was that enforcing tougher rules would cost money that officials said they didn’t want to spend. McClellan cited a new conflict of interest and ethics advisory council, which would be created under the bills passed by the House and Senate, as the most potent improvement in the package. It would create an online disclosure form database, issue advisory opinions, conduct training and come up with ideas for future reforms. Some legislators pushed to give the council teeth, including a role as arbiter of which free trips should be considered legitimate. But doing that, Albo said, would cost $200,000 to $300,000. Other legislators want the commission to perform random yearly audits to see if legislators and others are filling out their disclosures truthfully. “That’s something we could do. But now you’re talking about spending $1 million for the [ethics] council. You’ve got to hire CPAs and stuff,” Albo said. Albo said there’s still time for legislators to consider amendments suggested by constituents. Ethics legislation is likely headed to negotiations between the two chambers to reconcile the differences between their versions. And Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) also has the opportunity to amend whatever package passes. The General Assembly would have to accept or reject the governor’s changes.

The Cub Scouts of Pack 683 in Fairfax did a brisk business selling popcorn in August and September. Peddling boxes outside grocery stores and on neighbors’ doorsteps, they raised about $2,800 for medals, camping and other expenses. The vast majority of the boys will never benefit from the funds they collected. The Roman Catholic priest at the church that sponsored the pack kept the money when he canceled the pack’s charter in response to the national Boy Scout organization’s decision to admit openly gay youths. Father John De Celles of St. Raymond of Peñafort in Springfield decided that the popcorn money, together with an additional $1,200 that Pack 683 had taken in previously, will go instead to support a new boys group that the church is sponsoring. That’s a unit of Trail Life USA, created to offer a scoutlike experience that calls itself “Christ-centered” and bars boys who publicly identify as homosexual. “He hurt these children for no reason so that he didn’t have to fund his own new program,” Pack 683 parent Stephanie Curb said. In my column two weeks ago, I criticized De Celles for terminating the Boy Scout and Cub Scout units at St. Raymond even though most American Catholic groups and leaders say the Scouts’ new policy on gays is consistent with church teaching. Shortly afterward, Cub leaders and parents e-mailed me to say I’d missed half the story because I wasn’t aware that the priest had also imposed a financial burden on the boys. De Celles had the authority to keep the money, but that doesn’t justify his decision. He should have divided it proportionally between the small number of boys who stayed for the Trail Life program, and the majority who departed for other Cub packs. “Even from a technical standpoint that he could keep it, I don’t think it was the moral thing to do,” Cub parent Melanie Frola said. Her son, Nick, was proud of selling popcorn worth $84.66 that his pack won’t see. Frola and her husband, Mike, said the decision prompted them to leave St. Raymond after being parishioners for 12 years. Pack 683’s former Cubmaster, Jess Speaker III, said the pack had about 30 boys in the fall when De Celles informed them that he would cancel their charter. About half the boys left shortly afterward to start a new pack, 1683, also led by Speaker. Most of the others went later to other Cub packs, and only a small number stayed to join Trail Life, said Speaker and the Catholic Diocese of Arlington. Speaker thought that De Celles’s action was unfair because many popcorn purchasers wanted to back the Cubs and had never heard of Trail Life. “The uniforms, the shirts sell the popcorn. People buy it because they were helping Scouts,” Speaker said. The new pack has had to hustle to raise money to pay for its annual Blue and Gold banquet. It also needs funds to assist Cubs who otherwise couldn’t afford dues, uniforms or camp. De Celles did not respond to phone messages and e-mails requesting comment. But the diocese confirmed that St. Raymond was keeping the money raised by the Cubs. “Any resources, including fundraising, that were part of the Scouting ministry within St. Raymond remained part of the ministry of the church, and would be used to fulfill the same role with the new organization,” diocesan spokesman Michael Donohue said. De Celles was within his rights because of national Boy Scout policy. It says that St. Raymond, as the chartering organization, always owned the pack’s money and equipment, regardless of how the assets were obtained. This wouldn’t happen in the Girl Scouts, where every troop is independent and possesses its own bank account and gear. Oddly, St. Raymond’s break with its Boy Scout troop, also 683, was apparently cordial. There wasn’t much money at stake, because the Boy Scouts’ funds were low before their spring mulch sale. Camping equipment, however, is to be divided proportionally between the Trail Life unit and a new Scout troop, according to an adult leader working with both groups. De Celles should have done the same with the funds raised by the Cubs.

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, proposed an overhaul of U.S. tax laws that would jettison hundreds of popular tax breaks in favor of a simpler code with lower rates. ¶ The plan would push the top corporate rate down to 25 percent, from 35 percent, and the top individual rate down to 35 percent, from 39.6 percent. ¶ Tax-filing season would be easier for most households, with an estimated 95 percent of filers likely to claim a new, expanded standard deduction and call it a day. ¶ But there would be no more personal exemptions, no more credits for child care, and no more deductions for medical bills or for state and local taxes. ¶ The mortgage-interest deduction would be available only for mortgages worth less than $500,000 (current mortgages would be grandfathered in). ¶ Investment income would be taxed as regular earnings (the first 40 percent would be exempt). ******The Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange** in Tokyo filed for bankruptcy protection, and its chief executive, Mark Karpeles, said 850,000 bitcoins, worth several hundred million dollars, are unaccounted for. **Credit Suisse** helped wealthy Americans hide billions of dollars from U.S. tax collectors, and federal regulators have done little to hold violators accountable, according to a U.S. Senate report. **** **Detroit’s** plan to deal with its $18 billion of debt and emerge from municipal bankruptcy would set a troubling precedent for the U.S. municipal bond market, Fitch Ratings said. Under the plan Detroit filed, owners of certain general-obligation bonds would take an 80 percent haircut on their investments. **** **JPMorgan Chase** plans to eliminate 8,000 jobs this year as its mortgage business shrinks. **Investors in Allen Stanford’s** $7 billion Ponzi scheme can sue to recoup losses from lawyers, insurance brokers and others who worked with the convicted swindler, the Supreme Court ruled. **The State Department’s inspector general** cleared the department of allegations that it improperly hired an outside consultant with industry ties to evaluate the Keystone XL oil pipeline. **Utilities** warned homeowners that they are about to get hit with a double whammy — higher natural gas prices and consumption, both driven to five-year peaks by the Arctic cold that gripped much of the country in recent weeks. **********Bernard Madoff’s longtime secretary** , Annette Bongiorno, said she was in the dark about her boss’s epic Ponzi scheme. She and four other employees of the disgraced financier are on trial in Manhattan federal court. Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence. **** **Maker’s Mark Distillery** plant in Loretto, Ky., will undergo a $67 million expansion to keep pace with demand. Japanese beverage company Suntory is set to acquire Maker’s parent company Beam. **Jos. A. Bank** rejected Men’s Wearhouse’s $1.78 billion sweetened acquisition offer. But it said it is willing to meet with its rival chain over a possible higher bid. **Barnes & Noble, **the operator of more than 1,300 retail and college bookstores, posted a $63.2 million third-quarter profit as it trimmed losses from the Nook digital unit. **Best Buy** posted $293 million in profit after cutting expenses and getting more of its sales from the Internet. **Freddie Mac** posted a record annual profit of $48.7 billion for 2013, triggering another fat dividend that will put taxpayers further into the black for bailing out the No. 2 U.S. mortgage company, but it warned that its recent string of earnings was unsustainable. **Gap reported** a 12.5 percent drop, to $307 million, in profit on a 3 percent decline in revenue as the clothing retailer was forced to discount heavily over the holiday shopping season to entice customers. **Macy’s** fourth-quarter profit rose 11 percent to $811 million. **J.C. Penney posted** its first quarterly profit, $35 million, in more than two years as a return to discounting and the revival of popular private-label brands helped sales at the department-store chain’s established stores. **** ******The U.S. economy** grew at a 2.4 percent annual rate last quarter, sharply less than the 3.2 percent first thought, in part because consumers didn’t spend as much as initially estimated. **Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index** said 2013 was a banner year for home price appreciation, with an 11.3 percent year-over-year gain in the fourth quarter. **** **President Obama** proposed a four-year, $302 billion spending plan to revitalize infrastructure. **To the list of planets orbiting distant stars,** add 715 more. That’s the number of planets, strewn among 305 planetary systems, popping out of the observational data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope. “We’ve almost doubled today the number of planets known to humanity,” said Jack Lissauer, a NASA planetary scientist. **— From news services and staff reports** The endless rounds of deficit reduction in Washington in recent years have significantly improved the nation’s budget outlook, reducing projected borrowing by $3.3 trillion through 2024, according to new estimates by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

The governing body of United Church of Christ congregations in the Mid-Atlantic is proposing that its members boycott Washington Redskins games and shun products bearing the team’s logo until the team changes its name and mascot. In a meeting Saturday in Catonsville, the 25-member board of directors of the Central Atlantic Conference of the UCC unanimously passed the boycott resolution, pointedly avoiding use of the word Redskins. The board, mostly laypeople, proposed that the 22,000 members of the liberal denomination “join a boycott of games played by the Washington National League Football team and not wear, display or purchase any items with the Washington National League Football team logo until the name changes.” The 180 congregations in the conference, which stretches from Richmond to New Jersey, were asked to debate the resolution before a vote on whether to adopt it at the conference’s annual meeting in mid-June. The conference also asked the church’s national governing body to consider passing a similar boycott resolution. “If you look at the dictionary definition of the present team name, it’s a derogatory term,” said the Rev. John R. Deckenback, the minister who leads the conference. “We’d like the name of the team to be changed.” Team spokesman Tony Wyllie offered a response, saying, “We respect those who disagree with our team’s name, but we wish the United Church of Christ would listen to the voice of the overwhelming majority of Americans, including Native Americans, who support our name and understand it honors the heritage and tradition of the Native American community.” The Redskins have come under increasing pressure in the past year to jettison their moniker. The Oneida Indian Nation, a small tribe in upstate New York, has been at the forefront of the effort, running an ad campaign, seeking support from business, religious and political leaders, and meeting with the United Nations’ human rights office to press its case. But team owner Dan Snyder has steadfastly refused to change the name, saying in an open letter to fans in October that he considers it a “badge of honor” and a symbol of “strength, courage, pride, and respect — the same values we know guide Native Americans and which are embedded throughout their rich history as the original Americans.” Joel Barkin, a spokesman for the Oneida tribe, said the team can expect more Americans to boycott the team and its merchandise until it comes up with a new name. “The team should expect that the longer this plays out and the longer the debate goes on, and the more people are educated why there is so much strong objection to the name,” he said, “there will be more and more economic consequences to continue using a dictionary-defined racial slur as a mascot.” Barkin said the tribe is grateful for the boycott calls coming from areas where the team draws most of its fans. “This was further evidence this is not simply an issue of political correctness, but a moral issue,” he said. “This is the heart of the fan base saying, ‘While we support the team’s history and understand the legacy, it is no longer acceptable in the 21st century.’ We think the members of their churches will put more stock in what their religious leaders tell them than what the team owners have told them.”

Twelve middle-school girls hovering around a lab table at the U.S. Naval Academy on Saturday had just begun testing the artificial heart valves they’d built out of rubber tubing and a piece of latex glove when Cmdr. Jill Richards bounded up. “Who wants to be a biomedical engineer?” whooped Richards, who usually teaches Navy weapons systems classes. “It’s so cool!” The enthusiasm wasn’t lost on 12-year-old Katie Tyndall, a sixth-grader from Wilmington, Del., who pronounced the heart-valve testing “really fun.” Nor did Katie miss the fact that the day-long program focused on careers in the sciences, technology, engineering and math — known as the “STEM” fields — was girls-only. “I think they’re trying to show us that girls can do anything we want to do, not just the boys,” she said. The workshops, attended by 230 middle-school students from the Washington area and beyond, were part of the academy’s broader effort to steer more young people into the STEM disciplines. The problem: The career fields that the Navy relies upon are ones that many girls drift away from after elementary school. The academy has hosted girls-only events since 2007. Professor Angela Moran, chair of the academy’s STEM program, noted that although 20 percent of the academy’s undergraduates are female, they make up only 10 to 12 percent of its engineering majors. “All the research shows this is the age where [girls] get the concept of their self-image and make decisions based on what their peers think,” Moran said. “They’re very aware of what other people are doing, and they don’t want to consider things that are abstract to them or difficult. They get a lot of messages about what girls can’t do,” she added. Workshop leaders tapped into many girls’ desire to help people, Moran said, while urging them to explore careers beyond the more familiar jobs of veterinarian, doctor and nurse. The academy’s faculty members — mostly women — and female midshipmen who led the classes also shared personal details: how they had children, climbed mountains for fun or liked to wear sparkly shoes. “It shows them we’re not all a bunch of nerds who run around in lab coats and do nerd things,” said Lt. Meredith Botnick, an aerospace engineer who helped the girls design and launch “rockets” made from drinking straws. “They see ‘I can have a family,’ and ‘I can still be girly.’ ” The girls dissected sheep hearts, took each other’s blood pressure, tested the weight-bearing capacity of their bridge designs and programmed Lego robots to navigate through a maze. Lacey Pasco, 13, of Annapolis, gasped when she learned during a bioterrorism workshop that she was one of the victims of a simulated smallpox outbreak. “I’m infected! Oh, no — I’m going to die!” she said, giggling. Lacey, a seventh-grader at Wiley H. Bates Middle School in Annapolis, said she learned that it was epidemiologists and lab scientists who would track down such an outbreak, not only police detectives, as she’d seen on television. “It’s different from my regular science class in school,” she said of the bioterrorism class. “I like to see how science works in the real world and how important it is.” Impressing middle-school girls, of course, takes a certain approach. Whose voice sang over a PowerPoint presentation showing women in science and technology jobs? Katy Perry’s, of course. Richards described the body’s interconnected systems in terms of the heart and lungs being “BFFs,” which — duh — means “best friends forever.” Workshop swag included rainbow-colored rubber bracelets and bright pink and teal knapsacks. Botnick made sure the girls in her rocket science workshop spoke up when they shouted, “Fire in the hole!” before launching their straw-rockets toward a target 75 feet away. “Anyone want to be a rocket scientist now?” Botnick asked the dozen girls waiting in line to launch. A few hands went up. “It’s fun,” Botnick told them. “You get to light stuff on fire and watch stuff fly!” Yasemin Schmitt, 11, a sixth-grader from New York, said she liked the girls-only aspect of the day. “I think you need to focus on girls because girls have a lot of great ideas,” she said. “I think we could all benefit from it. Tons of girls like to [study science, math and technology], but sometimes they think they can’t. But we’re just as capable as boys.” As Lucy Buda, a sixth-grader who attends Lime Kiln Middle School in Fulton, Md., said before heading off to redesign her rocket: “Normally, everyone thinks boys are smarter.” The event was free and funded through more than $10,000 in in-kind donations and grants from foundations and the Department of Defense, Moran said. The academy’s faculty and undergraduates volunteered their time. “I love working with girls this age,” Richards said, before she turned to a table of sheep hearts awaiting 12-year-olds with scalpels. “The world is open to them, and they need to know that.”

CHARLOTTESVILLE — Virginia forward Akil Mitchell hardly remembers a team staff member approaching with a ladder, overwhelmed by the fans surrounding him. But as fellow senior Joe Harris joined Mitchell to carry it through the masses covering the court at John Paul Jones Arena, the gravity of the moment began to sink in. Coach Tony Bennett didn’t even want to cut down the nets, groaning when told to return to the floor, where thousands of fans hadn’t left more than 15 minutes after the final buzzer sounded. And by the time point guard London Perrantes climbed each step, a cardboard crown atop his head and a pair of scissors in his hand, not even an unexpected knot could slow down this celebration. No. 12 Virginia ran away from No. 4 Syracuse, 75-56, on Saturday to secure its first outright ACC regular season title since 1981, the culmination of a season in which the Cavaliers have gone from ACC also-rans to national contenders in a matter of months. “You can do nothing but smile at that point when you beat a really good team like that and you’re having success like we’re having,” sophomore Malcolm Brogdon said. “It’s surreal when you think about it.” In the record books, it will officially be the Cavaliers’ 13th win in a row, but it also represents the defining victory of the Bennett era because of how it came to be. Virginia (25-5, 16-1) simply wore down the Orange (26-3, 13-3), showing a national television audience the same formula that has worked so well in recent weeks Brogdon, playing through a sprained right thumb suffered in Wednesday’s win over Miami, led the way with a career-high 19 points, 17 of which came after halftime when the Cavaliers turned another tight game into a double-digit triumph. Mitchell added 12 points and nine rebounds and center Mike Tobey chipped in 11 points and eight as Virginia dominated Syracuse inside with forward Jerami Grant (DeMatha) hobbled by a back injury. Sophomore Justin Anderson (Montrose Christian) also scored 11 points off the bench. As has been the case throughout Virginia’s best start to conference play, it methodically broke down an opponent’s will with a combination of suffocating defense and efficient offense. “The depth this year, the balance is what’s different. It’s not just Joe,” Bennett said of Harris, who finished with just seven points and didn’t connect on his first field goal until 4 minutes 40 seconds remained in regulation. “All of a sudden, it just happens,” assistant coach Jason Williford added. This time, the turning point came midway through the second half, after the teams exchanged the lead five times in nine minutes and Brogdon broke a 42-42 tie with four straight points. Two possessions later — and moments after a three-point attempt by Harris rimmed out with building ready to explode— Syracuse point guard Tyler Ennis (13 points) picked up his fourth foul on a charge drawn by Virginia’s Anthony Gill. With Ennis on the bench, Perrantes pulled up and drained a three-pointer that gave Virginia a 49-42 advantage with less than nine minutes to play. Virginia had found its groove, with Brogdon knifing through Syracuse’s 2-3 zone from the high post. Before long, the Cavaliers led 62-47 -- part of a 48-point second half in which Virginia shot 57.7 percent from the floor -- and a sold-out crowd of 14,593 roared with a ferocity this arena has rarely seen. “The last time I heard it that loud I was at the Taylor Swift concert,” Bennett joked. When it was over, Bennett talked about a Friday night phone call he had with his father, Dick Bennett, the man who first taught him the Pack-Line defense that was so effective on Saturday. Dick Bennett wanted his son to deliver a message to the Cavaliers for him: “I want to see a really good man-to-man team beat a really good zone team.” Tony Bennett then delivered his own message during a huddle just before Virginia’s clinching surge. “Let’s stop giving them anything. We’re a defensive team, and either we’re gonna do it this way or we’re not,” he recounted. “These guys have something in them to make those runs.” Beforehand, Bennett worried Mitchell and Harris might become too emotional following a pregame ceremony in recognition of their final home game. He reminded them, “when the season’s over, we’ll get a DJ and party at my pool.” But once a packed student section rushed the court, there was no stopping the euphoria. No matter what Bennett wanted. Mitchell walked into his postgame interview with the net around his neck, joking he again had to do all the heavy lifting for Harris when the two carried the ladder across the gym. Even Athletic Director Craig Littlepage, as stoic as they come, couldn’t resist rotating his hips in an impromptu dance. This day belonged to Virginia after a win its fans had been craving for 33 years. “You think about moments like this as a kid lying awake in bed,” Mitchell said. “It’s a dream come true.” More on college sports: Box score: Virginia 75, Syracuse 56 Feinstein: Memories of the ACC’s Dean Stinnett throws no-hitter for Maryland GW looks to get back on track Colonials women beat No. 21 Dayton

When Albert Lewis attended middle school in Prince George’s County in the late 1990s, he was shocked to walk into his eighth-grade history class and find a black man sitting behind the teacher’s desk. Nathaniel Laney’s presence was a first for Lewis, who is now a teacher himself. Until then, he had never seen a male teacher outside of gym class. Seventeen years later, not much has changed for students in Prince George’s County and in other classrooms across the country. “It has actually gotten worse,” said Robert Gaskin, the school system’s director of human resources. Hoping to devise ways for the school system to recruit and retain men, Lewis, Gaskin and more than 100 male educators filled the auditorium at Charles Herbert Flowers High School in Springdale on Saturday for the county’s first male educator summit. In Prince George’s County, a majority-minority school system where half the student body is male, men make up 21.4 percent of the district’s teaching staff. There are 1,043 black male teachers, who represent 11.3 percent of all teachers, and 45 Hispanic male teachers, or 0.5 percent of the county’s total. Curtis Valentine, the school board member who organized the discussion, said addressing the male teacher shortage is a key component of improving student achievement in Prince George’s. “I believe that when teachers are more reflective of the student body — both race and gender — students perform better,” he said. Richard M. Ingersoll, a professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, said the overall number of teachers has increased over the past 30 years, but the percentage of male teachers continues to drop. In 1981, women comprised 66 percent of the teaching workforce. In 2011, that had risen to more than 75 percent of the teachers in public school. “It won’t be long before [women] are 80 percent” of the teachers in the country, Ingersoll said. “I just don’t think this is going to go away.” Men made up 24 percent of the teaching pool in public schools in the United States in 2012, according to the most recent numbers available from the National Education Association. The percentage of male teachers in Maryland and Virginia fell below the national average at 22 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively. The percentage of male teachers in the District was 23 percent. Veteran and new teachers talked about the financial struggle of staying in Prince George’s County, which routinely loses teachers to the District and Montgomery County, where the pay is higher. They discussed the need for mentors for young male teachers. And when Van Rawls, a math department chair at Flowers High School, said schools lose good teachers in the classroom because they have little chance of making more money unless they become administrators, the audience applauded. “There is no real career ladder without moving,” Rawls said. Organizers of the summit said they plan to hold another session in May, where teachers and principals will be assigned to one of three work groups: mentoring, imaging and system reform. Valentine said he wants to create mentor programs that would partner senior teachers with novices, administrators with teachers, and teachers with college students or mid-career adults considering education. He said he wants the county to create a campaign to “re-image teachers,” showing that the profession is desirable for boys. And Valentine said the final group will work with the administration to design a more efficient recruitment process and to create a “master teacher” pipeline, which would allow teachers to earn more. Gaskin said budget cuts in past years have hurt the county’s efforts to recruit and offer support to male teachers. Kevin Maxwell, the new schools chief, who got his start in Prince George’s County, is committed to focusing efforts on addressing the male teacher shortage, he said. For boys to consider teaching as a career, they need to see male teachers in the classroom, Ingersoll said. Because they don’t, “it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that males don’t become teachers,” he said. “This is a pipeline issue,” said Christian Rhodes, the education adviser for County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D). “We really have to grow our own teachers. . . . We have one of the largest populations of black and Hispanic male students in the country. We have to create a pipeline for them.” Lewis, who grew up in Prince George’s and was named the county’s 2013 Teacher of the Year, said having Laney as a teacher made a difference for him. “I could identify with him and because of his influence, it made me want to push myself — to not disappoint him,” said Lewis, who like many of the students in his class was raised in a single-parent household. Today, Lewis teaches language arts at Walker Mill Middle School — the same school where he met Laney, his first male teacher.

The American Humanist Association filed a lawsuit last week in federal court in Maryland calling for the removal of Bladensburg’s 40-foot Memorial Peace Cross, which honors men from Prince George’s County who died during World War I. The association and three individual plaintiffs contend that the cross, which is on state property, violates the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. The cross was dedicated in 1925. The lawsuit states that the humanist association is an organization that advocates progressive values and equality for humanists, atheists, and freethinkers. One of the individual plaintiffs, Steven Lowe of Washington, contends that the cross “associates a Christian religious symbol with the state and gives the impression that the state supports and approves of Christianity, as opposed to other religions,” the suit says. **— Michael E. Ruane** The disabled U.S. Army veteran who successfully sued the FBI over his removal from the agency’s training program for special agents will reenter the academy June 1, according to a court filing and the veteran’s attorney. Justin Slaby, whose left hand was blown off by a defective “flash-bang” grenade in 2004, was admitted to the FBI’s training academy in 2011 after he passed the agency’s basic fitness-for-duty tests. But instructors removed him, concluding that he could not safely fire a gun with his prosthetic hand. Slaby, 31, sued over the removal, and last year won a verdict that deemed him qualified to train as a special agent and gave him $75,000 in damages. **— Matt Zapotosky** Getting back at an ex-lover by posting his or her private pictures on the Internet will soon be a crime in Virginia if Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) signs a bill that passed out of the General Assembly on Friday. The legislation’s passage “is a huge weight off my shoulders,” said Nicole Coon, a Virginia nursing student who worked with lawmakers on the legislation. A video she sent to a former boyfriend ended up on a Web site that demanded $500 for its removal. The bill would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to “maliciously” distribute a nude or sexual photograph of another person with “intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate” without license. **— Rachel Weiner**

As the Washington Nationals start their exhibition games, when rookies dot the lineup and vets try to hide how tickled they are to be back playing baseball, they might want to consider one thought that is as cold as ice. The Washington Capitals’ window has closed. Year after year the Caps said, as the Nats are now saying for the third straight year, we have the talent, we have what it takes, right here in this room, to play for a championship. Our window of opportunity is wide open. Right up until it isn’t. Alex Ovechkin is in his ninth season. Nine. Even with the three-time MVP on pace to score nearly 58 goals, the Caps are 16th in the NHL in points and have a coin-flipper’s chance at the playoffs. They are no longer one of the six or eight teams that is in Stanley Cup debates. They’re just a decent back-in-the-pack team, outscored this year, with a puncher’s chance to find a hot goalie in the playoffs, get their lines right, fall into a couple of advantageous early-round matchups and . . . And be what? A miracle team? Great, love to see it. Only four months ago we enjoyed the last such team in a major sport — the last-place-to-World-Series-winning Red Sox. Such fun actually does happen. But it has nothing to do with open windows. That’s what the Nats should understand. If the Caps had made horrid mistakes, the pain of watching them now as they struggle to be average would not be so annoying and poignant. But they didn’t. Their exceptionality just slipped away as the years sped past. The Caps should illustrate to the Nats that you don’t have to be a farce franchise run like the FedEx football circus to disappoint your dreams. Everybody from the owner to the Zamboni driver can be pretty good and extremely conscientious. And the result can still be “no dice.” Perhaps one message is clear as you try to climb through that window: Look honestly and critically at what is happening to you. That may not be enough. But it’s essential. The Caps never did, at least not in public. When the Caps failed, the coaches, the general manager and the owner, who always sets the tone, apologized for the team, covered for them and said, “Next year.” What you never heard was: When this much ability produces so little in the playoffs, then something is significantly wrong. As a result, the Caps returned each season, saying the right things but never with raw urgency. There’s a high price for being even slightly self-deluded. Will the Nats do better at facing facts? In 2012, they blew a 6-0 lead in a game that would have taken them to MLB’s final four. They were young. Hindsight says St. Louis was better. Understandable, just like the early Caps exits. But you have to say, “That’s one.” Then last year, the Nats played tight for months. The Braves beat them repeatedly with mental toughness and fundamentals. “Expectations” got the Nats, an old baseball disease. It was hard to believe, much like the Caps’ Game 7 loss at home to eighth-seeded Montreal in 2010. But after you smack your forehead, here’s what else you say if you’re the Nats: “That’s two.” It’s true the Nats have a lot of key players under team control for a lot of years, plus an impressive stampede of pitchers in the minors. That’s the kind of accurate but too-cheerful talk that often distracted the Caps. The Nats count all their “great young arms” like the Caps counted their young talent. It sounds logical, unless few of them prove exceptional. Here’s the quick and dirty: Don’t hate the Caps, but don’t become them. The Nats can only be absolutely sure that their window will stay wide open for two more years. After that, Jordan Zimmermann or Ian Desmond or both could leave as free agents. For now, neither seems to be leaning toward accepting any hometown discount to stay, and teams are crazy to issue full-price $100 million career insurance policies two years before free agency to players who are very good but aren’t going to the Hall of Fame. After 2016, Stephen Strasburg can be a free agent. The large majority of Scott Boras’s top clients change teams for top dollar as early as possible. By the time a player leaves high school, he knows who he is, what he wants. His agent is his tell. The Lerners smile. They know better. They’ll stay with us. Okay, but make sure you have Lucas Giolito ready for opening day of ’17. When teams are very good and might soon be great, everybody’s happy from the anticipation. Few want to nag. But you can end up living in a sports echo chamber where you seldom hear anything that’s not welcome, especially if you are the most talented players or the bosses. What don’t the Nats want to hear? They have ability, but it’s not fully polished, especially Strasburg and Bryce Harper. Their work ethic and maturity off the field appears to be exemplary. It’s on the field that they are sometimes immature. The last two years Davey Johnson made their world less prickly by interpreting them generously to the public with his humor. The Caps coddled some of their young guns off the ice. The Nats need to make sure that they are candid — not cruel but direct — about on-field flaws in their young talents or their demeanor under adversity. They can take it. Finally, the Nats have owners who keep learning but perhaps not as fast as they think. When their baseball people handed them two industry-praised trades — for Gio Gonzalez and Doug Fister — they balked both times and required days of debate before signing off. If good people do fine work and it’s not recognized, one day they’re gone. When the Nats give a $125 million contract, that’s Ted Lerner’s money. But when scouts, coaches, stats analysts and an entire front office discover, draft and develop minor league players, then deliver a prospects-for-a-star trade, the owner’s job is to know how little he knows and say, “Great work!” The Nats’ window now, like the Caps’ for many years, appears to be invitingly open. That means if many things go right and not too much goes wrong, the Nationals may one day just barely squeeze through it. For more by Thomas Boswell, visit washingtonpost.com/boswell. More on the Nationals: Spring training box: Nationals 16, Braves 15 Discussion thread transcript from Saturday’s spring training game Notes on rotation, Werth, Mattheus A winning start for the Nationals’ new manager Fister to make his first spring start for Nats on Sunday

David M. Barrett, a special independent counsel who spent more than a decade in a largely futile effort to press corruption charges against former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, died Jan. 22 at a daughter’s home in New York. He was 76. He had congestive heart failure, his son, Peter Barrett, said. When Mr. Barrett was appointed special counsel in May 1995, his mission was to determine whether Cisneros, who was President Bill Clinton’s HUD secretary at the time, had lied to the FBI during a background check about the amount of money he had paid his former mistress in Texas. “The first task here is to be fair,” Mr. Barrett said at the time. “Part of fairness is alacrity, and I intend to do this as quickly as is consistent with completeness.” The resulting investigation dragged on year after year, as Mr. Barrett brought charges that never stuck. Long after the law authorizing independent counsels had expired, Mr. Barrett stayed on the job, ultimately spending $21 million in taxpayer money in the longest special counsel investigation in history. The early facts of the case were these: Cisneros admitted to having had an affair with Linda Medlar (later known as Linda Jones) when he was mayor of San Antonio in the late 1980s. He said he gave her occasional payments through the early 1990s, but no more than $10,000 a year, and never more than $2,500 at a time. “In fact, he paid her more than $2,500 at various times, and his total annual payments to her were between $42,000 and $60,000,” Attorney General Janet Reno said as she authorized the special counsel investigation. Mr. Barrett, who had a private law practice in Washington, was picked by a three-judge panel to lead the fact-finding mission. He had earlier led an 18-month special inquiry into corruption by Rep. Daniel J. Flood (D-Pa.), causing Flood to resign from Congress in 1980. At first, Mr. Barrett was praised, particularly by Republican congressmen. He had been a onetime Republican congressional candidate in Indiana and, in 1980, was part of a group called Lawyers for Reagan. He had been in charge of the transition team at the Securities and Exchange Commission after Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980. Fifteen years later, as special counsel, Mr. Barrett hired a staff of almost 30, including six full-time lawyers, to look into Cisneros’s payments to his mistress. Several FBI agents were assigned to help him on the case. “We moving ahead as quickly as we can, being consistent with fairness,” Mr. Barrett said in October 1997. In December 1997, Mr. Barrett’s investigation seemed to be nearing an end when a grand jury indicted Cisneros on 18 felony counts of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making false statements. Cisneros faced 90 years in prison, but he never went to trial. In September 1999, more than two years after he left HUD, he pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of lying to investigators. He was later pardoned by Clinton. The only person who went to prison was Medlar, who was convicted of bank fraud. U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin said the independent counsel law “reaffirms the importance of telling the truth,” but he also directed criticism at Mr. Barrett. “The problem with this case is that it took too long to develop and much too long to bring to judgment day,” the judge said, noting the entire case “should have been resolved a long time ago, perhaps even years ago.” With the target of his probe convicted, it appeared that Mr. Barrett’s job was at an end. But his investigation was not yet half over. The special counsel law had been passed in the 1970s as a response to the Watergate scandal, as a way to provide independent scrutiny of corruption by governmental officials. Mr. Barrett had been investigated by a special counsel during a probe of influence peddling at HUD in the Reagan administration. He profited from HUD contracts on housing projects in Oklahoma but was cleared of any wrongdoing. No fewer than six independent counsels examined corruption allegations against the Clinton administration, the best known of which was Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation of Whitewater and Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. But Mr. Barrett outlasted them all. The law that created the office of an independent counsel expired in 1999. Mr. Barrett’s pursuit drew comparisons to Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, the fictional lawsuit in Charles Dickens’s “Bleak House” that dragged on for decades. “I want to conclude this investigation as soon as possible,” Mr. Barrett said again in 2001. The scope of Mr. Barrett’s inquiry expanded to include possible charges of tax evasion, political favors and interference in his investigation by officials at the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service. But the Justice Department of President George W. Bush closed the door on Mr. Barrett, saying there was “no actual evidence” of a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Mr. Barrett’s final report appeared on Jan. 19, 2006, almost 11 years after he took office. Democratic lawmakers criticized Mr. Barrett as an extreme example of government overreach and prosecutorial zeal run amok. Even some Republicans turned against Mr. Barrett, including former independent counsel Joseph DiGenova. “If this doesn’t prove [the independent counsel’s] worthlessness as a governmental entity,” he told The Washington Post in 2004, “I don’t know what does.” David Martin Barrett was born in Buffalo on April 21, 1937. He grew up in South Bend, Ind., where his father was a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. Mr. Barrett graduated from Notre Dame in 1959, then served as a Navy officer. He received his law degree in 1965 from Georgetown University, where he was an editor of the law review. In the 1960s, he was an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, taught at Notre Dame and was a country prosecutor in Indiana. He worked in Tulsa in the 1970s before establishing a private law practice in Washington in 1975. Survivors include his wife, Kathleen O’Hara Barrett of Rehoboth Beach, Del.; four children, Kristin Patterson of Milford, Del., Peter Barrett of Washington, Julie Barrett Hanlon of Rye, N.Y., and Laura Plunkett of Tarrytown, N.Y.; and nine grandchildren. A daughter, Megan Barrett, died in 2008. By the time Mr. Barrett issued his special counsel report in 2006, Cisneros, the putative subject of his investigation, had left HUD, had spent three years as president of the Spanish-language TV network Univision and had returned to San Antonio to start a housing development company. “I leave it to Mr. Barrett to do his job,” Cisneros said in 2001, “and I’ll do mine.”

_David J. Kramer is president of Freedom House and a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Russia and Ukraine in the George W. Bush administration._ President Obama faces the gravest challenge of his presidency in figuring out how to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. How he responds will define his two terms in office, as well as determine the future of Ukraine, Russia and U.S. standing in the world. After all, if the authoritarian tyrant Vladimir Putin is allowed to get away with his unprovoked attack against his neighbor, a blatant violation of that country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, then U.S. credibility, already damaged by Obama’s poor handling of Syria, will be down to zero. Allies won’t believe in us, enemies won’t fear us and the world will be a much more dangerous place. The White House statement issued late Saturday afternoon expressing “deep concern over Russia’s clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty” was woefully inadequate. There are things Obama needs to do immediately, some in collaboration with our European and NATO allies, others on our own. They include: ●Imposing sanctions against Russian state-owned banks and financial institutions; ●Widening application of the 2012 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act against an array of Kremlin officials, including Putin; ●Terminating all negotiations with Russia on a possible trade agreement or promoting business; ●Calling an emergency NATO meeting to reassure NATO allies that border Ukraine and initiate mobilization of forces to be ready for any developments (Article 4 of the NATO Treaty, invoked by Latvia and Lithuania, calls for consultations about security concerns); ●Sending U.S. military ships to the Black Sea for any contingencies; ●Pushing for a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Russia’s aggression against its neighbor, even though Russia will obviously veto it; and ●Joining other Group of Eight members in expelling Russia and announcing the cancellation of Obama’s plans to visit Sochi, where Putin was to host this year’s G-8 meeting in June. There may well be other things Obama should do: Some have called for deploying U.S. forces to western Ukraine and the capital, Kiev; others have said we should immediately offer NATO membership to Ukraine. The United States should aim for realistic responses, ones that will not lead to divisions within NATO. But Obama should also not telegraph to Putin what U.S. limits are in responding to Russia’s aggression, as he and Secretary of State John F. Kerry did in fecklessly trying to make the case for a “pinprick” military strike against Syria’s Bassar al-Assad for the use of chemical weapons. Let Putin wonder how far the United States and NATO might go in responding to his military attack. Ukraine, a country of 46 million people, straddles NATO and the European Union on one side and Russia on the other. It is key to realizing a long-held U.S. vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace. In 1994, the United States, Ukraine, Russia and Britain signed the Budapest Memorandum as part of the deal for Ukraine to relinquish its nuclear weapons to Russia. Under that agreement, signatories are, among other things, to respect Ukrainian independence and sovereignty within its borders; protect Ukraine from aggression; and avoid economic pressure on Ukraine. Clearly, Russia has violated that understanding. The United States and Britain have an obligation to respond, and hopefully other NATO allies will too. Like his overall approach to foreign policy, Obama has been much too removed from the deteriorating situation in Ukraine the past few months and spoke out for the first time only 10 days ago, after Ukrainian authorities used gruesome force against protesters in Kiev. Obama warned Ukrainian officials not to “step over the line,” a phrase that lost meaning when he warned Assad not to cross a “red line” at use of chemical weapons — and then did nothing to follow through. For years, Putin has shown zero respect for his U.S. counterpart and utter disdain for the West in general, and the United States in particular. Obama’s reset policy is partly to blame for what is unfolding in Ukraine, after giving Putin a pass on his human rights abuses, aggressive policies toward his neighbors and support for murderous regimes like the one in Syria. Putin never saw from the United States any deterrent or consequences for his outrageous behavior, such as trade sanctions against Russia’s neighbors in violation of its World Trade Organization commitments or the worst crackdown in human rights in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union. All too often, Obama and his team looked the other way. That neglect is coming home to roost in the worst way possible: a Russian invasion of Ukraine. At least we can stop listening to those in the Obama administration and in the analyst community who called for Russia to have a role in deciding Ukraine’s future or to “Finlandize” Ukraine by the United States promising Russia that Ukraine would never join NATO. Putin’s actions in Ukraine should make clear to all that as long as he is in power, Russia will remain a threat to freedom and to many of America’s interests. **Read more about this topic:** Jim Hoagland: ‘A world awash in change’ The Post’s View: Condemnation isn’t enough for Russian actions in Crimea Anne Applebaum: The pressure is on Ukraine Jennifer Rubin: Obama let the Russian bear out Charles Krauthammer: Putin’s Ukraine gambit

THREE YEARS AGO, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) made a deal with the state’s public-employee unions. Under its terms, state workers agreed to pay more of their salaries into Maryland’s underfunded pension system and accept lower benefits for new hires. In return, the state promised to devote $300 million annually from the resulting savings to shore up the pension fund, which at the time had less than two-thirds the amount it needed to make future payments. Now Mr. O’Malley is trying to renege on the deal by grabbing back $100 million a year to plug a hole in the state’s budget deficit. By doing so, he is undercutting not only his credibility but also the state’s, and putting at risk Maryland’s coveted triple-A bond rating. That’s a bad idea, and lawmakers in Annapolis should reject it. Maryland’s $40 billion pension fund is a vital lifeline for 138,000 retirees, who were paid almost $3 billion from it in the fiscal year that ended last summer. Like many states emerging from the recession a few years ago, Maryland was forced to find a fix for the fund, which had been battered by anemic stock market performance and years of cavalier underfunding. The 2011 deal set a course to restore it to relative good health by 2023. We say “relative” good health because the deal was based on a goal — 80 percent of the total amount of obligations faced by the state — that constitutes a somewhat squishy definition of good health. Yet reaching even that goal would be pushed back to 2025 if Mr. O’Malley gets his way by shifting $100 million annually from the pension fund into the general budget. The governor faces a dilemma familiar to many of his counterparts across the country. Pension obligations are long-term challenges that are subject to mathematical debate, while the requirement to set balanced budgets is immediate and obligatory. The temptation is enormous to dip into pension funds to plug current deficits. Tempting or not, it’s unwise. As it is, Maryland’s timetable to restore the depleted pension fund is based on investment performance forecasts that, as in many states, may prove excessively sunny. The bond-rating agencies, which have smiled on Maryland until now, are likely to take a negative view of any move to chip away at the state’s commitment to its pension fund. If the agencies downgrade Maryland’s bonds even slightly, it will cost the state millions of dollars annually in higher interest payments. That’s not a risk the state should run. Both Peter Franchot (D), Maryland’s comptroller, and Nancy K. Kopp, the treasurer, have warned lawmakers against adopting the governor’s proposal. Ms. Kopp, no one’s idea of a bomb thrower, correctly stressed that the state would be breaking its word. “It’s a question of trust, in all candor,” she told lawmakers last month. “We trusted $300 million, and now we’re told to trust $200 million.” **Read more:** The Post’s View: A level-headed reform for Maryland’s pension system The Post’s View: Moody’s ratings are appropriately cautious on states’ pension funding Harold Meyerson: Steering America toward a more secure retirement

A FEDERAL JUDGE on Wednesday struck down Texas’s ban on same-sex marriages, the latest in a string of conservative states where judges have condemned discriminatory laws. U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia ruled that even under the laxest standard of judicial review, the state’s restrictions have no rational relationship to any legitimate governmental purpose. Judges in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Ohio, Utah and Virginia recently filed rulings favoring same-sex marriage on similar grounds. The cause of gay and lesbian equality continues to advance faster and farther than anyone would have anticipated not long ago. The advance is neither guaranteed nor universal, however. In this country, higher courts could still pull back, and the interplay between red-state politics and judicial rulings remains uncertain. More alarming is the advance of bigotry in countries such as Russia, Nigeria and, most recently, Uganda. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Monday signed a repressive law to punish homosexual behavior. The law makes “aggravated homosexuality” a crime, punishable by a 14-year prison sentence for the first offense and a life term thereafter. Declining to report homosexual activity is another offense, as is counseling gays and lesbians. The most immediate consequence may be the anti- gay vigilantism the law encourages. The day after Mr. Museveni signed the law, a Ugandan newspaper published the names of the country’s “top 200 homos.” In response to Western outrage, Mr. Museveni declared, “There’s now an attempt at social imperialism, to impose social values.” It’s worth examining that sentiment. By what right do President Obama and other agents of the U.S. government demand that other countries adopt mores that are only just gaining a strong foothold here? The strides the United States has made in gay and lesbian rights are new and nowhere near universally accepted. Many states and the federal government still do not bar discrimination based on sexual orientation. Most states still don’t allow same-sex marriage. Following Arizona, other states are considering proposals meant to ensure that business owners can turn away gay or lesbian customers. But every country, no matter its level of development, has a basic moral duty to respect the inherent dignity of its people — all of its people. On that measure, Uganda obviously failed. We can debate whether a baker should have a choice about catering a same-sex wedding. There should be no debate — there can be no defense — of government policies that devalue and endanger human beings. Judge Garcia found that Texas’s laws against gays and lesbians marrying “demean their dignity for no legitimate reason.” That’s a valuable standard to keep in mind in evaluating new laws, whether they encourage discrimination in Arizona or persecution in Uganda. **Read more:** The Post’s View: Same-sex marriage gains momentum, thanks to the courts Jonathan Capehart: Virginia is for all lovers Ruth Marcus: A same-sex marriage debate we need

IT TOOK Vladimir Putin less than a day to trample on President Obama’s warning against a Russian military intervention in Ukraine. On Saturday, the Russian president orchestrated a unanimous vote by his rubber-stamp upper house of parliament authorizing invasion not just of the Crimean peninsula — where thousands of Russian troops are already deployed — but of all of Ukraine. The United States now faces a naked act of armed aggression in the center of Europe by a Russian regime that is signaling its intent to steamroller this U.S. president and his allies. Mr. Obama must demonstrate that can’t be done. Mr. Obama’s first response on Saturday was to spend 90 minutes on the phone with Mr. Putin. According to the White House, the president offered the Russian ruler peaceful ways to pursue his interests in Ukraine, including the dispatch of international observers to monitor treatment of Russian speakers and internationally-mediated talks with the Ukrainian government. It’s reasonable to offer Mr. Putin a face-saving way out of the crisis he has triggered. But Mr. Obama needs to be prepared for the very real possibility that, as in his previous invasion of Georgia, Mr. Putin will ignore international condemnations and press ahead. Mr. Obama has been vague about the consequences of continued Russian aggression. Saturday’s statement spoke only of the suspension of U.S. participation in preparatory meetings for an upcoming G-8 summit in Sochi. Mr. Obama should make clear that its aggression will comprehensively damage all aspects of Russia’s relations with the United States. Such a policy would start with cancellation of Mr. Obama’s attendance at the Sochi summit and suspension of talks with Russia on trade issues. Mr. Obama should convoke a meeting of the seven industrial democracies that excludes Russia. Mr. Putin should get the message that he will henceforth be a pariah to the democratic world. Mr. Obama should make clear that he will no longer shrink from applying sanctions to Russian leaders and businesses complicit in aggression or human rights violations. An expanded list of Russian officials subject to visa denials and asset freezes that was drawn up by the State Department late last year should be immediately approved by the White House. Russian officials in the chain of command of the Ukraine invasion, as well as Russian companies and banks operating in Crimea, should be the next targets of financial sanctions. The most powerful non-military tool the United States possesses is exclusion from its banking system. Mr. Obama should make clear that if Russia does not retreat from Ukraine, it will expose itself to this sanction, which could sink its financial system. Russia’s economy, unlike that of the Soviet Union, is heavily dependent on Western trade and investment. It must be made clear to the Kremlin that the Ukraine invasion will put that at risk. Many in the West did not believe Mr. Putin would dare attempt a military intervention in Ukraine because of the steep potential consequences. That the Russian ruler plunged ahead shows that he doubts Western leaders will respond forcefully. If he does not quickly retreat, the United States must prove him wrong. **Read more about this top:** The Post’s View: Condemnation is not enough Jim Hoagland: ‘A world awash in change’ Anne Applebaum: The pressure is on Ukraine Jennifer Rubin: Obama let the Russian bear out Charles Krauthammer: Putin’s Ukraine gambit

In the end, two of the Washington region’s most prestigious institutions — the University of Maryland and the Corcoran Gallery of Art — each felt a bit ill-used by the other. And two others — George Washington University and the National Gallery of Art — swooped in to feast on the pieces of a courtship gone bad. The aftermath of last week’s announcement that the Corcoran would split like an atom and give itself away to GWU and that fancier gallery on the Mall — and leave Maryland dumbstruck — brings no tantrums or overt gloating. The private after-action reports in College Park and on 17th Street NW run more to sentiments like, _How did that happen? Were we even speaking the same language?_ The Corcoran’s surprise spurning of Maryland stunned Terrapin boosters and Corcoran advocates alike. Only a tight circle of top officials at each institution knew that more than one deal was in play. Previous talks with GWU and the National Gallery had gone nowhere. Maryland had emerged as the apparent savior of Washington’s oldest private art gallery and art school, following Corcoran trustees’ urgent five-year search for a financially stable future. Maryland President Wallace Loh learned that the prize would not be his only hours before Corcoran told the world. “I was highly impressed and very much looking forward to the outcome that Maryland was going to have with the Corcoran,” said Maryland Del. Jon S. Cardin (D-Baltimore County), who discussed prospects with Loh in Annapolis several weeks ago. “I was in­cred­ibly surprised when just a few weeks later” the rival agreement was announced. “I am tremendously disappointed.” It all began with high hopes and warm feelings in April — a “marriage” proposal between the financially struggling Corcoran and culturally ambitious University of Maryland. After seven months of exclusive dating, two more generous suitors secretly beckoned in December. Maryland made its best and final offer on Feb. 5: It would commit at least $46 million to a partnership with the Corcoran, divided between operating cash to ease the Corcoran’s chronic deficits and a capital injection to help renovate the Beaux Arts landmark near the White House, which is estimated to need more than $100 million in repairs. The flagship state university also would share responsibility for operating the Corcoran College of Art & Design, and it would marshall its prodigious fundraising machine — which keeps score by the billion — to reanimate the Corcoran’s feeble ability to solicit money. A critical concern of Corcoran negotiators was that much of the Maryland financial aid was to be structured as loans. Under worst-case scenarios, those loans would have to be repaid, potentially leaving the Corcoran back in the fiscal lurch where it started. Maryland negotiators also placed more faith in fundraising to provide additional support. Corcoran veterans know their institution has been unable to attract sufficient donations for generations. In comparison, George Washington University and the National Gallery bid narrow and simple, with joint proposals tailored to each institution’s forte: GWU would take complete responsibility for the college and assume ownership of the building — including the duty to renovate it. University officials have not disclosed how much GWU will spend. President Steven Knapp said the renovation could be done for less than previous estimates, since the new configuration would have less museum-quality exhibition space. The Corcoran also would contribute a smaller amount, to be determined. The National Gallery would acquire, at no cost, a large fraction of the Corcoran’s 17,000 pieces of art — and the charge to store and care for it. The publicly subsidized gallery also would mount exhibitions of modern and contemporary work in the historic building under the name Corcoran Contemporary, National Gallery of Art, with free admission. All that got the Corcoran’s attention. “Because the National Gallery and the George Washington proposal was financially stronger and had fewer risks over the near and long term, the Corcoran board made the determination to take their proposal,” said a knowledgable source, who, like most interviewed for this story, requested anonymity to preserve a cordial relationship among the institutions. “In the end, not all courtships are destined to end in marriage,” Loh said in a statement last week. “We wish the NGA and GWU well as they keep alive the venerable name and legacy of the Corcoran.” Corcoran officials informed top Maryland officials and university lawyers in December that they would begin to talk to other potential partners — while still negotiating with the university — since the exclusive memorandum of understanding signed with Maryland in April had expired in September. Within the Corcoran, the renewed outreach to GWU and the National Gallery was known only to the trustees and a handful of executives. For Maryland, the outcome represents the faltering of a prestigious step in a strategy to become a greater cultural force in the region. A deep collaboration with the Corcoran would have afforded “access to a landmark building across from the White House, to magnify our presence in the nation’s capital,” Loh said in his statement. For the Corcoran, saying no to Maryland means forgoing what may have been the 145-year-old gallery’s and art college’s last chance to survive united, with partial autonomy in a relationship with a much larger partner. Unlike Maryland, neither GWU nor the National Gallery alone would agree to embrace both the Corcoran gallery and college, with all their budget problems and need for more space. Instead, under the new agreement, the Corcoran college and gallery would be split between GWU and the National Gallery — albeit largely in the same historic building — with management authority transferred to the new partners. (The transaction is subject to signing detailed documents by early April.) “They are carrying on the legacy of the Corcoran in exactly the same way we would have wanted to carry it on, had we had the ability and the financial resources to do so,” Peggy Loar, the Corcoran’s interim director and president, said last week. The Corcoran would continue to exist in name upon gallery labels and GWU art diplomas. It would carry on as a much smaller nonprofit organization devoted to art, while portions of its collection — which includes such gems as “The Dance Class” by Degas, “George Washington” by Gilbert Stuart and “Niagara” by Frederic Edwin Church — would be distributed to other galleries in Washington or across the country. Closing a deal was a top priority for all. Loh, Knapp and National Gallery director Earl A. “Rusty” Powell III each made their pitches in early February to the Corcoran’s trustees. Ultimately, the outcome turned on money, risk and control. In April, the Corcoran and Maryland seemed to have embarked on a beautiful friendship. The day after the memorandum of understanding was announced, Loh toured an exhibit of student thesis projects in the gallery. He posed for pictures in front of works he admired and tweeted his high hopes: “Spent a wonderful morning w/the Corcoran community. Loved seeing the students’ creativity at the NEXT exhibition!” Over the spring and summer, both sides plunged into working out the details with gusto. Maryland administrators worked out of the Corcoran to help with planning. But when it came time for Maryland to put financial details on paper in late fall, the Corcoran side was disappointed. Was this a polite blow-off? “I really thought maybe they [Maryland] didn’t want the arrangement, and they wanted to let us down gently,” said a person familiar with the talks. Yet Maryland negotiators insisted that their intentions were good, and the disappointment ran both ways. “It seemed to us they [the Corcoran] wanted a partnership in the beginning, and in the end, they wanted a takeover,” said another source. Even now, with the decision made, some facts about the negotiations remain in dispute. The Maryland side offered less money than had been discussed in the spring, and it was all loans, according to some sources. The operating subsidy would not have equaled deficits in recent years; the renovation subsidy was a fraction of the estimated cost; and, in the meantime, the Corcoran would have been required to make annual, ­multimillion-dollar contributions from its shaky resources. Another source countered that although many ideas had been in the air in the spring, no promises were made then. The operating money was to be granted, not loaned; the renovation money would have to be repaid only in unlikely circumstances; and the requirement that the Corcoran pay any fixed annual amounts was removed at the final pitch meeting, said the source. As for the art college, Maryland was unwilling to assume full responsibility for its operations and the cost of needed expansion. Instead, Maryland wanted “a true partnership” with “shared ­decision-making and shared responsibilities for co-management” of both the college and the gallery, Loh said in his statement. In fact, a shared responsibility is more in line with Corcoran’s leaders’ public statements back in April. They insisted then that “it’s not a merger, nor is it a takeover.” Now, however, Corcoran leaders’ attitude has changed, as they prepare to let GWU take over the college and the National Gallery to adopt the collection. Key details remain to be worked out. The Corcoran, ironically, is sitting on a tidy recent cash windfall — including the $10 million settlement from the Huguette Clark estate last fall and proceeds from the auction of Persian rugs for more than $40 million last June. It is unclear how much Corcoran cash GWU will claim to help renovate the building. The Corcoran will survive as a smaller nonprofit entity and may keep some of that money to fund its mission “dedicated to art and encouraging American genius,” even without the gallery and the school. The Corcoran also will seek to be released from its founding purpose as a gallery — chartered by financier and philanthropist William Wilson Corcoran in 1869 and now to be redefined in 2014.

HAMPTON, Va. — Even with its biggest standout hobbled, Forest Park’s boys’ indoor track and field team was deep enough to win a state title Saturday. Mustaqeem Williams suffered a cramp that kept him out of one race, but Ricky Morgan and others stepped up as the Bruins easily took the Group 6A championship — their second straight state crown — at the Boo Williams Sportsplex. Forest Park finished with 71.5 points. Grassfield finished second with 55 and Western Branch took third with 41. “Lot of hard-working kids,” Bruins Coach Andy Tramel said. Williams skipped the 300-meter dash. Earlier, the senior won the 55-meter dash in 6.27 seconds to add to his long jump and triple jump titles. Morgan, also a senior, won the 500 (1 minute 5.28 seconds) and took second in the 300. He said the Bruins’ balance was key Saturday. “We’ve got a good team,” he said. “Everyone pushes each other.” Forest Park also pulled out a narrow win in the boys 4x200 relay, edging Western Branch by 0.19 seconds. The Bruins’ time was 1:31.67. Gregory Smith ran the final leg for the Bruins. “I felt him breathing on my neck,” Smith said of Western Branch’s anchor. “I knew I just had to go faster.” On the 6A girls’ side, Western Branch rolled to the title by piling up 137 points. Lake Braddock finished second, 100 points behind. Robinson took third. The Highland Springs boys and Atlee girls won the 5A team titles. Individually, West Springfield senior Caroline Alcorta enjoyed a big day. The All-Met Cross-Country Athlete of the Year won 5A titles in the 1,600 and 3,200, setting facility records in both. Her 1,600 time was 4:52.16, her 3,200 time 10:24.07. Alcorta’s goal was to win both. The records “were a big cherry on top,” she said. In the boys’ 5A 3,200, Marshall senior MacKenzie Haight (9:16.62), a first-team cross-country All-Met this past fall, took first place in a close race over Edison senior Louis Colson (9:17.26), the All-Met Cross-Country Athlete of the Year. Haight’s time is the best in Virginia this season and ranks 17th in the nation. Robinson senior Nathan Schulte won the tightest race of the day, beating Centreville senior Chase Heiner by 0.01 seconds in the 1,000 meters. Down the stretch, Schulte’s only thoughts were “don’t let him beat you.” “He’s a great competitor,” Schulte said. “He definitely pushed me today.” Another Robinson senior, Macey Schweikert, set a facility record of 2:49.63 in winning the girls’ 1,000. She said she was surprised when she saw her time. “I felt kind of slow,” she said. “When I saw that, I thought ‘Somebody pinch me.’ ” Oakton’s John Stoney won the 1,600 with a 4:16.51. That bested Osbourn Park’s Nick Causey by about a second. Woodbridge’s Jewel Christian won the 500 dash. T.C. Williams’ s Noah Lyles won the 300 dash and Herndon’s Andrew Goldman won the 3,200.

VIERA, Fla. — As the Washington Nationals prepare to play their 10th season in the District, their inaugural campaign holds a special place in many hearts. More than 2.7 million people, still the largest single-season attendance in Nationals history, filled RFK Stadium for the first baseball season in Washington since 1971. Before a second-half collapse, the ragtag collection of players sat in first place by 2½ games at the all-star break. “You’re part of baseball history,” utility man Jamey Carroll said. Much has changed since 2005 — ownership, the front office, the team’s record and renown — but vestiges of that season remain in some corners of the Nationals’ spring training clubhouse. Ryan Zimmerman, a first-round pick called up in September 2005 and now the longest-tenured player on the Nationals roster, has been reunited with Carroll and reliever Luis Ayala, both of whom rejoined the team this winter on minor league deals. They’re joined by shortstop Ian Desmond, who was a wide-eyed 19-year-old in his first big league spring training in 2005, and Livan Hernandez, the opening day starter that season who is back in Viera this year as a member of the Nationals’ spring coaching staff. That five players with ties to the 2005 Nationals are all with the team — for this spring, at least — amazes the man who used to manage them. Could Frank Robinson have pictured Ayala, Carroll and Zimmerman all still in the majors nine years later? “No,” Robinson said in a telephone interview last week. “The only one I’d imagine is Zimmerman.” “We’re all lucky to be back,” Ayala said. Added Desmond: “You never know where this game is going to take you.” As the Nationals move further from their bleak beginnings, the presence of these five figures serves as a reminder of that past. In 2012, the Nationals enjoyed the best season in team history: 98 wins, a National League East title and the city’s first postseason appearance since 1933. Although last season was disappointing, the Nationals finished with a record of 86-76, only the second winning season in the team’s first nine seasons in Washington. Under the Lerner family and General Manager Mike Rizzo, the Nationals have restocked the minor league system, spent in free agency and benefited from dreadful seasons to draft Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper first overall in consecutive years. They no longer play in worn RFK Stadium but in $693 million, six-year-old Nationals Park. Carroll, who was drafted by the Montreal Expos in 1996 and played with them in the majors for three seasons before his lone year in Washington, watched the transformation from afar. “It’s a whole different scenario,” he said. “Everyone on this team is different. A different ballpark. So it has a completely different feel. But, at that point in time, you hoped that this is what would become of the organization, a chance to be competitive and be in the mix.” The odds of the reunion were slim. Carroll was a key bench player in 2005, hitting .251 in 113 games. He then spent two seasons with the Colorado Rockies, two with the Cleveland Indians, two with the Los Angeles Dodgers, a season and a half with the Minnesota Twins and finished last year with the Kansas City Royals. Hernandez posted a 3.98 ERA over 2461 / 3 innings in 2005 and was traded in August 2006 to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Matt Chico and Garrett Mock. He then pitched for the Twins, Rockies and Mets before returning to Washington from late 2009 to 2011. He last pitched in the majors in 2012 for Atlanta and Milwaukee. Ayala was a key member of the 2005 bullpen, with a 2.66 ERA over 68 games. He was traded in August 2008 to the Mets for Anderson Hernandez and then spent the next five years with six teams, finishing strong last year with the Atlanta Braves. After years of struggle, Desmond fulfilled his potential and became an all-star shortstop in 2012. Since his dazzling September in 2005, Zimmerman remained consistent and has played 1,137 games in a Nationals uniform, most in team history. He is the unofficial dean of the team despite being only 29, and was happy to see the familiar faces return this offseason. “It’s gotta be almost weird for them to come around full circle,” Zimmerman said. “They’re great teammates and guys, and it’s nice to have them back.” In the offseason, two decisions reunited the group. The Nationals wanted to add depth to the bullpen and bench. Carroll, 40, who has lived in Viera during the offseason for the past nine years, said he had offers from other teams but chose the Nationals. He felt he had a good chance to make the team and signed on Jan. 9. “At this point in time, you want to have a chance to continue to play and the postseason, and looking at this team it was one thing to consider,” he said. “And two, it was back in the National League. I feel like I’m better suited for a National League team.” Also late in his career, Ayala, 36, weighed offers from the Philadelphia Phillies and Detroit Tigers but chose Washington for the comfort. There’s a logjam of relievers fighting for the final spots in the Nationals’ bullpen but Ayala, because of his experience and good groundball rates, could earn a spot with a strong spring. “When you spend several years in an organization and you feel comfortable, it’s better than more money,” he said in Spanish. “This is the team that saw me grow, and I spent some fun years here. And I made a lot of friendships here. I made the decision to come here because of what’s happened in the past. I feel good here and I would love to finish my career here.” Ayala, whose right arm carries the mileage of 534 career major league appearances, said the Nationals’ young talent has rejuvenated him. “I feel young,” said Ayala, seated at his locker, sandwiched by other relievers fighting to make an impression. “It’s nice to feel young again. It’s nice to be here and be around the youngsters and feel energized.” The 2005 season holds a special place for its five remainders. Zimmerman and Carroll have caught up since Nationals camp has started. Hernandez and Ayala have shared stories this spring of that inaugural season. “They’re good memories,” Hernandez said in Spanish.“We brought baseball back to Washington. It had been like 34 years since there had been baseball in Washington. And my best memory was the first [home] game, and I was lucky to pitch and we won. That’s a memory I’ll never forget.” “It’s kind of fun to know you’re a part of the start,” Carroll said. “And hopefully you can be part of something fun this year.” **More on theNationals:** Boswell: Nats’ window won’t be forever Notes from a sloppy spring win Rotation updates; Werth set to play

Under the midnight sky in mid-February, hulking fire Truck 13 occupied a quiet street corner in the Trinidad section of Northeast Washington. The driver stared at the empty intersection. In the back seat, a firefighter-paramedic studied a manual. Another firefighter in the rear of the ladder truck leaned his head against the window. Nearly a mile away, their firehouse, designated Engine 10, was empty. A grueling number of runs has historically made it among the most desirable posts for D.C. firefighters, who live for the action of the job. It is known as the “House of Pain.” But this is a new type of pain. Since December, the firefighters have been ordered to leave their firehouse most nights and park their truck on the street for four hours as a crime deterrent. It is called “soft posting.” They view it as veiled punishment. “It’s got to be retaliation,” said Ed Lehan, a sergeant who works on Truck 13 at Engine 10. “We don’t have any protection. We don’t have bullet­proof vests.” In the past three years, the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department has been ravaged by plummeting morale, strife between the rank and file and management, and a series of public blunders under the tumultuous tenure of Chief Kenneth B. Ellerbe. While the District’s population surged and the demand for medical calls increased, more than 60 paramedics have left in the past three years. At the same time, there is growing concern over Ellerbe’s commitment to a 2007 task force effort that sought to reform and unify the department as it dealt with the demands of more medical calls. Across the department, firefighters say they are over­worked and under­paid, and fear retaliation for speaking out about conditions that could jeopardize the public, according to interviews with current firefighters, higher-ups in the department and retired employees. They say Ellerbe unfairly blames the rank and file for systemic failures, resulting in paranoia and deep anxiety. The rancor has intensified in the past year. Ellerbe’s face was digitally imposed onto Osama bin Laden’s body and circulated in text messages among firefighters. “Taliban” is their code word for Ellerbe allies. During the holiday season, a photo of the chief’s face was shaded green and transposed onto the body of the Grinch. Nowhere is the tension more evident than at Engine 10, which has become an epicenter in the war between the rank and file and the chief. By an unofficial count, at least 10 of its firefighters have recently had disciplinary actions against them or found themselves at odds with Ellerbe, which some claim is because of their whistle­blowing efforts. “Every report you do, everything you do, you’re being watched,” said Sgt. Joe Papariello, who was moved to Engine 10 in the fall, several months after he testified before the D.C. Council that Ellerbe failed to support the department’s paramedics. Ellerbe does not dispute the claim that he is keeping a watchful eye. “I live in the city. I’m all over the place. Tell them I am ubiquitous,” Ellerbe said in an interview Friday. “I am omnipresent if that’s what they want to think. I am watching all of the time. Because I care about what happens in this city.” No other firehouses now participate in soft posting, but Ellerbe rejected the idea that the plan was created as a way to punish the Engine 10 crew. It was started, he said, in collaboration with the office of the deputy mayor for public safety, Paul A. Quander Jr., as a way to cut down on crime and establish a community presence in the neighborhood. Ellerbe also said soft postings have been used in the past near area swimming pools. “To say that it’s personal? I don’t know those guys,” he said. “Innuendo, assumption, rumors . . . in this department, they all take on a life of their own.” The most recent upheaval stems from the Jan. 25 death of Medric Cecil Mills Jr., who did not receive help from five firefighters at Engine 26 after he suffered a heart attack across the street from the Northeast Washington firehouse. “Simply put, poor leadership has brought this once-great department to ruins,” Ed Smith, president of the firefighters union, said last week at a D.C. Council hearing about Mills’s death. Ellerbe has defended his performance amid recent calls for his ouster from three D.C. Council members. A hallmark of his tenure, he said, has been a push for accountability. “I’m not going to be embarrassed. I’m not going to be intimidated. I’m not going to be dissuaded. I know what we have to do in terms of getting this organization moving in the right direction,” he said. “There is no quit in me at all. The whole idea seems to be ‘if we embarrass the department and the chief enough, then he’ll quit.’ No.” In the summer, he reported success in lowering response times by focusing on a “chute time” measure, which is the amount of time it takes firefighters to leave the firehouse after they hear the alarm. But firefighters say the result has been a culture of fear. Ellerbe disputes that notion. He said his initiative sought to clean up a culture that values fighting fires over medical calls. “Somebody has made a call out there and needs our help. The idea of lackadaisically finishing your sandwich or watching the end of this TV program or slowly approaching the apparatus is not acceptable.” Mayor Vincent C. Gray, who appointed Ellerbe, has defended the chief’s tenure. “We’re having to change the department, which some people like and some people don’t like,” Gray (D) said in a recent interview. “He’s taken a lot of the heat for changing things that some people don’t want changed.” On Monday, Ellerbe appeared before a D.C. Council oversight hearing headed by Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) on the failure of firefighters to help the 77-year-old Mills. The chief sat next to his boss, Quander, who said he was “deeply troubled” by the “apathy” and “disregard for human life” that firefighters showed that day. Both pledged that those responsible would be held accountable. “When I heard about this, I was furious, because it should not have happened,” Ellerbe said. The day after the hearing, Wells, a candidate in next month’s mayoral primary, called for the resignations of Quander and Ellerbe. “Blaming racial divisions, union membership, or other perceived motivations for the Department’s dysfunction must end,” Wells wrote in a letter to Gray. “It is a disgrace to place responsibility on the rank-and-file employees who put their lives on the line for D.C. citizens every day,” he added in a news release. On Friday, Ellerbe will appear before the council for his annual performance hearing. The agenda is expected to revisit the department’s recent high-profile embarrassments. Early on New Year’s Day 2013, Durand Ford Sr., 71, did not receive timely aid and died of cardiac arrest, after a night when a staffing shortage limited the number of ambulances. Last March, a D.C. police officer was hit by a car and had to wait 15 minutes for an ambulance. In August, an ambulance on a White House call ran out of fuel and was abandoned on the South Lawn. In the same week, two ambulances caught fire, and pictures of the flames spread rapidly on social media. “We make the news more than the Kardashians,” said Nick Orosz, a firefighter-paramedic assigned to Engine 15. “You’ve never heard of a fire department having this many problems.” In the fall, two independent reports were released, one focused on paramedic shortages and the other detailing fleet mismanagement. “Mistakes will be made,” Ellerbe said. “When you have an organization this big that has been floundering for 15 to 20 years, out of the public eye, a lot of these problems didn’t just come up. But now this stuff is bubbling up every day. And rather than try to hide it and cover it up, we’re here, wide open.” The department had pledged seven years ago to enact changes. The instigation was the death of retired New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum, who had been beaten in a robbery Jan. 6, 2006, near his home in upper Northwest Washington. He was transported in an ambulance on a lengthy, circuitous route to Howard University Hospital before languishing for hours untreated in a hallway. He died two days later of brain trauma. An inspector general’s report exposed an “unacceptable chain of failure,” along with general “apathy” and “indifference.” The Rosenbaum family agreed to settle a lawsuit forgoing damages against the District in exchange for a full review of the city’s emergency response system and meaningful reform. One of the key recommendations that followed was to move toward a force where all personnel could both fight fires and respond to medical emergencies. “The aim of this recommendation is to improve performance and eliminate a cultural divide that has persisted within the agency for too long,” Mayor Adrian M. Fenty wrote in a letter that accompanied the Rosenbaum task force report in 2007. The divide had created “two performance standards, competition between divergent missions, and inequities in pay and benefits.” The plan was to focus more on the medical mission of the department, including a push to hire more firefighters dual-trained as paramedics. There was a consensus that the report would serve as a blueprint. Although a handful of the recommendations required legislation, most did not. They were simply policy guidelines, easy to ignore with the passage of time. Ellerbe grew up in the District and graduated from Calvin Coolidge High School in 1978. He spent most of his career working his way up through the D.C. firefighter ranks. “I came up old school,” he said, rolling up his white dress-shirt sleeves. “These scars on my elbows come from crawling down burning corridors looking for kids.” After a brief stint as the fire chief in Sarasota, Fla., he returned in 2011 to take the helm of the D.C. department. In his first few months as chief, Ellerbe took steps to carry out the Rosenbaum recommendations. He issued a memo requiring all employees to log on to a computer and reread the task force report. He followed a suggestion to strip the department of its historic name, the D.C. Fire Department, and rename it the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. Firefighters were banned from wearing old DCFD apparel and had to paint over the logo at D.C. firehouses. The idea was to be more inclusive. Instead, it sowed division in a department where firefighter pride is paramount. Many of the rank and file continue to wear their old DCFD T-shirts when they are off duty. Over time, though, the department has shifted away from some recommendations. Ellerbe’s predecessor, Dennis L. Rubin, had put into place EMS-focused battalion chiefs who would provide 24-7 supervision of medical responses­. Only one remains, and he works a day shift. Claude Ford Jr., a former EMS battalion chief, said he was troubled by the dismantling of the strong oversight structure. Before he retired in 2012, his position was eliminated and he was transferred. Ellerbe “did not explain where we were going, how we were going to get there,” said Ford, who lives in Port Charlotte, Fla. “The bad blood and the mistrust is so ingrained now that it would be difficult to turn that around.” Ellerbe did not address in the interview why some of the EMS hierarchy was dissolved, but he said he eventually wants to restore those positions. The key recommendation that has been allowed to languish in recent years was the one pertaining to dual training, particularly the hiring and retention of firefighter-paramedics. Under Rubin, an influx of young firefighter-paramedics came from across the country in 2009-10 to serve in the nation’s capital, hailing from Washington state, Wisconsin and Ohio, among other places. They were touted as the promising future of a fire department striving to be among the nation’s best in delivering medical care. As the task force had recommended, they were cross-trained in fire and paramedic care. Ellerbe said he has not forgotten the Rosenbaum family’s loss, but he believes he is doing what is best for the department and the city in placing an emphasis on medical calls. He has not adhered strictly to the dual-training strategy, saying department morale benefits when new hires are allowed to choose their path. “A lot of times what we’ve found is that people want to provide medical service, but they don’t want to ride a firetruck,” he said. “We’ve also found that some of our firefighters don’t want to do medical work.” No new firefighter-paramedics have been hired. Instead, he has brought in more than 100 fresh high school graduates as part of a cadet program for D.C. youth that he revived. They are trained as firefighter-emergency medical technicians, who have a lower level of medical knowledge than paramedics. A recent graduate of the cadet program was on duty at Engine 26 when Mills collapsed. He later said he did not know how to respond to the emergency. Last year, Ellerbe also hired eight single-role paramedics, who are not trained as firefighters and can ride only on ambulances. Plans are in place to hire more single-role paramedics, despite a public safety committee report in June that questioned why the department would stray from the Rosenbaum blueprint. “I am comfortable that we are hiring the right people,” the chief said. Ellerbe has publicly stated that the reason he doesn’t hire more firefighter-paramedics is that he fears he would have to lay them off if his shift-change proposal is adopted. He wants to go to a system of more days worked on 12-hour shifts instead of the current schedule of 24-hour shifts followed by three days off. He thinks this would be a more efficient use of ­resources, providing more-alert firefighters as well as allowing more training, less overtime costs and better staffing of ambulances. Shorter shifts was one of the recommendations of the Rosenbaum task force. “If you’re working once every four days, or 96 days a year, for full-time pay, how dedicated are you, really?” he said in the interview. The proposed schedule has been used in the city in the past, and D.C. firefighters dubbed it “the divorce shift.” Many are concerned about the impact of the increased work hours on their family lives in addition to the travel time for those who live outside the District, some from as far as Pennsylvania and West Virginia. “They can dub it anything they want,” Ellerbe said. “It’s the most effective. And it’s the most efficient work schedule for this type of work, particularly because of our role in emergency medical care.” Recently, an arbitrator’s report advised against the shift change, citing a study that expressed concerns about first responders’ ability to function without proper rest. It also ensured that firefighters would be paid overtime if they had to work more than 42 hours a week, resulting in a victory cry from the union. But Ellerbe said he is awaiting a separate ruling from the D.C. Public Employee Relations Board. “I’m not here to fight,” he said. “I’m here to make the necessary ­changes to improve the efficiency of service.” The discontent among the firefighter-paramedics was highlighted in a 79-page document by the D.C. inspector general’s office in December, titled “FEMS Fails To Address Critical Staffing Shortages.” Its authors attributed the exodus of paramedics to heavy workload, limited career advancement, potential for higher pay and better benefits elsewhere, an evaluation process that is focused on blame, and inadequate continuing education. According to the report, as of summer 2013, there were 231 paramedics within the department, which has about 2,130 full-time employees. “It’s sad because I know these guys. They’re my friends,” said Jamie McMahon, a firefighter-paramedic who moved to the District from Wisconsin in 2010. “They got what they could from this place and moved on. I don’t want to give up yet.” Brandon Streicher, a 25-year-old firefighter-paramedic, is less optimistic. “I came to the city because I wanted to work for the DCFD, an organization filled with pride and tradition,” said Streicher, who arrived three years ago from the suburbs of Milwaukee, his belongings crammed into his Toyota Camry for the 13-hour drive. “That has changed.” Streicher works at Engine 11 in Columbia Heights on bustling 14th Street NW. “Morale is absolutely at an all-time low,” he said. “We work in a fear-based environment. Every cardiac arrest call we go on . . . every house fire we go to . . . we fear retaliation and reprimands from upper management if the outcome isn’t favorable.” Streicher said his biggest concern is the workload. Because of the paramedic shortage, firefighter-paramedics are sometimes required to work 36 straight hours. The 12-hour extension known as a “holdover” did not exist until the summer of 2012, according to the union, which has counted more than 1,000 holdovers since then. Papariello, the sergeant paramedic transferred to Engine 10, oversees a team of four firefighters who volunteer to track holdovers and downgrades, which occur when a fire engine or an ambulance operates without its scheduled paramedic. “It’s truly a matter of public safety,” Papariello said. Over the past two years, Papariello has repeatedly testified in front of the D.C. Council about staffing and morale. He has suggested that Ellerbe has created a “manufactured crisis” by not retaining firefighter-paramedics. “My goal was to tell the truth and to tell what’s going on out in the field,” Papariello said. “As long as I stick to the data, [Ellerbe] can’t hurt me.” He has filed a Freedom of Information Act request in an effort to uncover information about why he was moved to Engine 10. Last week, as he was still waiting for that request to be filled, he was moved to another firehouse. Across the District, the firehouses are known for their character. Engine 3, “The Capitol Protector,” sits near a scenic Capitol Hill backdrop and regularly opens its doors to tourists who stop by to view an original steam pumper from the late 1800s. Engine 16, just blocks from the White House, proudly displays a “Midnight Express” insignia with a picture of an adrenaline-fueled Tasmanian devil. Across the Anacostia River, Engine 33 stands like a secure fortress in Southeast Washington. Nicknamed “The Valley,” its logo is an ominous buzzard with blood dripping from its talons. In many of the houses, there is an air of sadness at the plight of a once-proud department. “You know things are bad when going to fires is the easy part of this job,” said Terry Williams, a lieutenant with 29 years on the job. Some firefighters say the low morale can be seen in the increase in injury leave. Under Ellerbe, the number of on-duty injuries has soared, increasing by 70 percent from fiscal 2011 to 2012 to more than 530 injuries. Last fiscal year’s figures show 307 injuries, still well over the department’s goal of fewer than 175. Ellerbe declined to speculate on what the numbers imply about morale. But he shrugged off his detractors with the bin Laden and Grinch artwork. They also sell “FLRB” decals online. “LRB” is the common slang for the chief’s name. “F” is an expletive. “It’s not something unusual for people in leadership,” he said. “We have a president that is not liked by everybody. We have a mayor and council members who are not liked by everybody.” Ellerbe often spends his time at the movies, usually by himself. Before or after the show, he likes to take a drive to check on his firefighters, traveling the streets in his black SUV with tinted windows. “Most times I see them performing their work admirably,” he said. “If they don’t, I don’t walk away from it. This is where folks seem to think that I’m petty. But I will not walk past any thing that is not right.” When he’s floating around at night, firefighters sound their own alarms, sending warnings by text that “LRB” is in the neighborhood. Ellerbe enjoys that reaction. “I’m going to see if I can’t clone my car and get about 10 of them, and strategically place them around the city,” he said, chuckling. “Or ask some clones of me to drive them.” Awhile ago, at the “House of Pain” at Engine 10, a photo of Ellerbe in a clown suit was posted on the wall. One night, when they heard LRB was on the way, they took it down.

Metro transit leaders on Wednesday scored some of the cash they need to carry out the ambitious goals for rail and bus service in the next decade. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) and D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) announced after a regional summit in Arlington County that they are collectively committed to giving the transit authority an additional $75 million beyond pledges already made for Metro’s long-term projects. McAuliffe said the leaders “agreed in principle” to providing the funds, subject to the will of lawmakers in the three regional jurisdictions. McAuliffe said the new money should serve as proof of the local commitment to Metro and should lead federal authorities to authorize additional funds for the system. Metro General Manager Richard Sarles called it a “terrific day” and said the new funding commitment is over and above the capital funding pledged to bring the system into a “state of good repair.” **— Robert Thomson and Mike DeBonis** Managers of the D.C. Circulator bus system are set to reintroduce a route around the Mall in 2015, but they also will consider other new routes and expansions of existing routes. The original intent of the city’s bus system was to connect activity centers, and that remains a top priority, D.C. transportation planner Circe Torruellas said during a forum to discuss the service’s future. Transit managers also are discussing whether to change the Circulator emblem and whether the schedule, which calls for buses to arrive every 10 minutes, should change. For example, should routes with lower ridership have a frequency of every 12 to 15 minutes? Should a new generation of routes abandon the 10-minute rule so the service can fit the new routes’ needs? **— Robert Thomson** The fine the contractor for Metro’s new Silver Line faces — plus an additional $75,000 a day — if the project is not finished by 90 days after an April deadline.

CHARLESTON, S.C. – The big question for D.C. United Coach Ben Olsen following Saturday’s preseason finale was whether his new-look gang is ready for the MLS campaign. “ _Nobody_ is ready for the opener,” Olsen said of the league’s 19 clubs. “But can we find ways to win when it’s not perfect? That is the trick early in the season.” It’s a particularly apt question for United, which will introduce seven new starters for the opener next Saturday night against the Columbus Crew at RFK Stadium. At the very least, United will begin the season on a positive note. With a 2-2 draw against the Seattle Sounders (1-0-2) at Blackbaud Stadium, D.C. (1-0-2) claimed the Carolina Challenge Cup title on a goal difference tiebreaker. A preseason trophy does not mean much, but after winning three of 34 regular season matches in 2013, United will depart the Lowcountry in a hopeful mood. “Results matter to us. They always do,” Olsen said. “Coming off last season, results maybe matter even more in the preseason. But it’s a new group, so most of them don’t have any baggage. They are looking forward to writing their own history.” United was at its best early in the second half, displaying energy and menace. Perry Kitchen scored on a scorching volley in the 53rd minute before the Sounders drew even on Marco Pappa’s goal in the 63rd. United played the final 15 minutes shorthanded after defender Cristian Fernandez was red-carded. “We are moving along quite nicely,” midfielder Nick DeLeon said. “Every game we have seen an improvement. Today we saw good stretches of defense and we had our best offensive combinations.” Eddie Johnson’s tight hamstring undermined a potentially spicy reunion with the Sounders, his previous club. In his place, Conor Doyle partnered with Fabian Espindola on the frontline. Top-choice goalkeeper Bill Hamid (ankle) was also scratched, allowing Andrew Dykstra to play 90 minutes. With the opener near, Olsen said he was extra careful with Johnson and Hamid and expects both to play next weekend. Otherwise on Saturday, Olsen utilized his probable starters for the opener: Sean Franklin, Bobby Boswell, Jeff Parke and Fernandez on the backline; and Davy Arnaud, Luis Silva, Kitchen and DeLeon in midfield. Seattle was without Clint Dempsey, who will rejoin the club this coming week after concluding his winter loan to Fulham and serving U.S. national team duty in Europe. A moment after referee Jorge Gonzalez ignored Seattle’s penalty kick pleas – Chad Marshall was knocked down – United was awarded a PK when Marshall handled DeLeon’s cross. Espindola converted in the eighth minute. United dodged trouble when Kenny Cooper missed a clear opportunity, but a minute later, Cooper beat Dykstra to Dylan Remick’s high cross. United buzzed with activity after the break, and Kitchen met Espindola’s corner kick for a one-timer from 10 yards. Pappa answered, gathering Brad Evans’s cross and placing a 12-yarder into the right corner. Seattle continued to carry the play and, in the 76th minute, United’s duress deepened when Fernandez was sent off for disrupting DeAndre Yedlin’s surge. In last year’s preseason finale, United’s Dwayne De Rosario was sent off for head-butting Philadelphia’s Danny Cruz, an action that resulted in a two-game regular season suspension. MLS will surely review Fernandez’s tackle, but he is probably safe from further penalty. Despite the disadvantage, United did not break under heavy pressure. “We are definitely moving in the right direction,” Kitchen said. “Today we advanced ourselves offensively: we had good sequences and good movement off the ball. We’re not where we want to be yet, but we are definitely getting there.” In London, Chelsea recovered from a sluggish first-half performance to see off bottom-place Fulham, increasing its lead at the top of the English Premier League standings with a 3-1 win. In other action, Stoke defeated Arsenal, 1-0, while Liverpool beat Southampton, 3-0. Everton recovered from back-to-back league losses by beating West Ham, 1-0, and returning to sixth place. . . . Newcastle Manager Alan Pardew was sent off for a head-butt on Hull midfielder David Meyler in his team’s 4-1 win. Pardew got a swift formal warning and $168,000 fine from his club, and faces the prospect of a lengthy suspension . The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Washington Post reporter Amy Brittain sat down with Fire Chief Kenneth B. Ellerbe on Friday to discuss wide-ranging issues concerning the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. Their conversation previews some of the subjects that will most likely arise at a lengthy oversight hearing in front of the D.C. Council’s public safety committee on March 7. Ellerbe has faced a variety of criticism, including calls for his resignation after the death of Medric Cecil Mills Jr., who collapsed on Jan. 25 in a Northeast Washington shopping center parking lot and did not received help from firefighters nearby at Engine 26. Additionally, Ellerbe has been at the center of an internal war within his own department, as some of the rank and file claim he has created a culture of fear. Here are key excerpts from their conversation. Brittain’s questions are in boldface type. Ellerbe’s answers are below in regular type. **This is a wide-ranging fire department story about the history of your three years here. And you made a comment on Monday during the [D.C. public safety committee] hearing that kind of struck me and I wanted to know more about the thoughts behind the comment. You said, “Council member Wells, I’ve spent three years talking about the culture of this department.” What did you mean by that comment?** What I meant is — over the past 5 or 10 years, we have seemed to go into somewhat of a professional decline in terms of expectations. Our employees are hired, and they have a great deal of respect for the tradition, the honor that goes along with the job. And I don’t know if they clearly understand that that honor and tradition is something that you have to uphold. We don’t just bestow upon you the hero or the honor title of firefighter. The folks who built this industry did great things every day. We can’t just come in now and rest on their laurels. We have to continue that — that behavior, we have to continue that idea of service. When we have things that happen that are contrary to honor and dignity of this public safety environment, somebody has got to do something about this. I came up old school. And I’m going to show you something, but it has nothing to do with this report, and I have never done this before. [rolled up sleeves] You see this scar? **** **Yes.** ****You see this scar? **Yeah, barely.** These are all scars. And these scars on my elbows come from crawling down burning corridors looking for kids. This is because a piece of glass pierced my arm, and I didn’t even know. It fell three stories down, and a shattered window went straight through my coat and right through my arm. This is a piece of equipment that fell on my hand and cut my hand to the point where I could see the tendon in my hand move. This is the only thing I went to the hospital for. **When did those injuries happen?** ****During my career as a firefighter, from 1982 through 1995. Now in the winter, my face will chap on this side [pointing to the right side] because I had the skin burned off of it. Second-degree burn, nothing major, but when you wipe a second-degree burn, the skin will come off. **Do you still have to treat it?** ****No. I have good skin. My mama had really good skin. But that was a time when the old school firefighters had a tin of salve that they kept in their lockers. At the end of these events, you’d go into the locker room, you’d rub that salve on and you’d go on to the next incident if it came up. Now, and I’m not trying to disparage our younger employees, but we can have people off for all sorts of stuff. ‘I twisted my ankle, I’m off for a month.’ Those kinds of things. And I understand that. But the honor, the duty, the service, all of those things require sacrifice. And we don’t seem to have a culture of dedicated sacrifice.We don’t seem to have a culture of camaraderie where you don’t throw your friends under the bus to make a point against the fire chief. We don’t seem to have a shop where you protect your buddy instead of exposing him to embarrass the fire chief. Because I’m not going to be embarrassed. I’m not going to be intimidated. I’m not going to be dissuaded. I know what we have to do in terms of getting this organization moving in the right direction. There is no quit in me, at all. The whole idea seems to be if we embarrass the department and the chief enough then he’ll quit. No. We will go to each and every incident where folks have failed to do their job and hold people accountable. That is what this whole thing is about right now, accountability. If I am going to be accountable for every employee, then I should have the authority to hold every employee accountable. **Now this whole culture, you said, that you’ve witnessed. . . it sounds like you’ve been a little bit bothered, even disturbed by it.** ****Sometimes I am. **Is that something that you saw immediately when you took over in 2011, or did it intensify over the years?** ****Well, it’s something that I saw before 2011. I was here for 27 years. I watched some things happen, in terms of extending our training period from one year to 18 months, which is a direct result of employees working a shift where they come to work once every four days. There is not enough contact with the leaders in the fire station, there is not enough contact with their comrades, there is not enough contact with management. If you’re working once every four days, or 96 days a year, for full-time pay, how dedicated are you, really? All I’ve asked them to do is adjust the work schedule, where we have more contact with each other, where we can do more training without overtime, where we can reposition some of our employees to provide better emergency medical care and services, where we can staff more ambulances and increase our ability to respond to every medical call. But there’s so much resistance because people have become accustomed to a work schedule that really is not beneficial to the citizens of the District of Columbia. _[Recently, an arbitrator released a report that recommended a retroactive pay raise for D.C. firefighters. The report detailed concerns about a potential shift change, and it guaranteed that firefighters would be paid overtime if they worked over a certain number of hours a week. The union touted the report as a victory against the move for a shift change.]_ _****_ _****_ **The arbitrator’s report. . . have you been through this all, or did the [general counsel] brief you on it?** I read it. I don’t think that we adequately put our case before the arbitrator, obviously. The arbitrator has ruled, and unlike our counterparts, I don’t know if we’re going to appeal that or not. I know that the Public Employee Relations Board said that we do have the authority to change our work schedule, and that’s why the arbitrator put an asterisk, that’s back before PERB because the labor organization has appealed the PERB’s decision that we can change the work schedule. I believe that shows how intent they are on resisting that change. **You’ve beentalking since you’re blue in the face about this issue since you came in. It was one of the recommendations of the Rosenbaum task force report that employees work shorter shifts. Is that the motivation for why you wanted this?** ****That is the majority of the motivation, but there is also the recognition that 80 percent of what we do is emergency medical work. The medical field basically requires their employees to work shorter hours. They don’t let them work 24 hours. There was a time when a resident worked 72 straight hours to become a doctor. You realize that that fatigue factor could have a negative impact on the outcome of patients. I would much prefer that our work schedule mirror the area where we work the most, and give us an opportunity to provide better care and service to the folks of the city. That was another motivating factor. But training, reduction in overtime — when I say training, I mean contact hours with their immediate supervisor. If an employee works eight days a month, a 24 hour shift, and they sleep eight of those hours, or six of those hours, the reality is they are over going to work 16, maybe 14, of those hours. If they only spent two hours a day with their supervisor training and learning their job, that’s four contact hours a week. That’s not enough time to learn this type of job. In addition to that, they have calls that they go on. Having been a trainer of probationers as a company officer, I know how much time it takes to train somebody from a raw recruit to a seasoned veteran. It’s not easy. And there’s a whole lot of stuff that as a senior employee, or as a seasoned firefighter, you almost take for granted because it’s second nature how to respond to stuff. But for a new person coming in, it can be terrifying to go into their first real fire. It can be frightening to confront their first real medical emergency. **So where do you go from here? Is [the shift change] still an option on the table for you?** ******************** This is still an option, and we’re still negotiating to a degree. But my intention is to get a contract signed. They want to make it about money, it appears, and quite frankly, as much as I care about the finances of the city, if we get the changes that we’re looking for, that benefit the city, and it’s at a reasonable cost, that’s a fair contract. Right now the city is paying money for a shift that it doesn’t need, almost $34 million dollars. And my fight is not with the labor organization, as much as they want to make it. My focus is on providing better service to this city. **So is it fair to say that you are exploring an appeal of this?** No. That won’t be up to me. That will be up to the Office of Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining. **Ok. I’m just trying to understand. I want to break it down very clearly. In the aftermath of [the arbitrator’s] report. . . is it still possible for you to make the change that you want with this roadblock now?** ****Yes, this is separate and apart from PERB. And when PERB rules on the appeal, then that is the standard that we go by. This has to do more with compensation, but it doesn’t impact our ability to change the shifts. **So when will PERB. . . [make a decision]?** **** I don’t know. I wish they had ruled before this came out. I can’t control when PERB makes a decision. But when they rule, if they rule in our favor, there’s a good possibility we will move forward, and we’ll move forward based on what the arbitrator has compelled us to consider regarding compensation. I’m not here to fight. I’m here to make the necessary changes to improve the efficiency of service. That’s what I focus on every day. We have improved. Think about this. This fire department has never purchased 30 ambulances in 6 months. And I personally went to the ambulance dealer and I also met with the manufacturer on two occasions to tell him how important this is. We’ll have 10 brand new fire trucks delivered within the next 12 months, and those are engine companies. Six will come in between April and May. **Are they engines or ladder trucks?** Engines. And we have four ladder trucks on order too. Two of those will be in before the end of this calendar year, and two more at the beginning of the next calendar year. It takes over a year to construct these vehicles, so the idea that the Council compelled us to do this is not true. And I don’t even want them to say that. I know they will. They can’t take credit for this. The mayor gave us $24 million over three years. $24 million dollars to buy this apparatus. That’s a heck of a commitment. And he knows the importance of what we’re doing with our cadet program, our apparatus purchasing. First we went out and we exposed ourselves, quite frankly, in recognizing that the fleet was in disarray. **By having the independent [fleet] report?** ****We had an independent contractor come in and scathe our tail, really. But they gave us the direction we needed and the confirmation we were moving in the right direction, in terms of apparatus-purchasing, getting rid of a lot of junk that we had on board, hiring professional managers, moving us to a more automated vehicle replacement program and a vehicle maintenance program. They’ve never done that before. We had to subject ourselves to the scrutiny of someone on the outside. We haven’t run from one of our challenges. We haven’t denied that we have challenges. We haven’t covered anything up. If we’ve made mistakes, we’ve said, “Look, we’ve made a mistake.” I testified before Council, “I made a mistake.” Mistakes will be made. When you have an organization this big that has been floundering for 15 to 20 years, out of the public eye, a lot of these problems didn’t just come up. But now this stuff is bubbling up every day. And rather than try to hide it and cover it up, we’re here, wide open. **You’ve mentioned the hiring of single-role paramedics. Back to theRosenbaum report. It reinforced the idea that you would hire only dual-role employees. So why did you make that decision?** ****Well, we respect what happened to the Rosenbaum family. And I still keep in touch with Marcus Rosenbaum. Now he may not be in full agreement, but I think he’s starting to see the value in bringing in people who want to do emergency medical work. A lot of times what we’ve found is that people want to provide medical service but they don’t want to ride a fire truck. We’ve also found that some of our firefighters don’t want to do medical work. They think, for some reason, it’s not something they need to focus on, when in reality, it’s exactly what they need to be focused on. So we’re looking for the employees who want to do the work. **You’ve had a lot of paramedics leave, particularly firefighter- paramedics.The inspector general’s report that came out said that there were serious issues with retaining them. I’ve talked with a number of them. To say that they are disgruntled is putting it mildly. Does that concern you, and, if so, what will you do to fix it?** ********You know, for every person that leaves, there are three people waiting for a job. That’s the first thing. I know that they’re not disgruntled because of the pay, because they are some of the best paid firefighter- paramedics in the country. They can’t be disgruntled about the equipment because we’ve purchased millions of dollars in equipment for them to wear, for them to use, and for them to ride in. So, I don’t know them. So they can’t be disgruntled with me personally. **Well, the report said there were better pay and benefits elsewhere, that they were very upset about the holdovers [12-hour shifts tacked onto 24-hour work days] happening. I’ve know you’ve said that the holdovers are a condition of not being able to make the changes you want.** ********Absolutely. **You support that?** ********I say those holdovers would not be occurring if we had shift changes. And those holdovers would not be occurring if folks came to work and that we could depend on them coming to work. **You and I have talked about the performance-on-duty injuries before. You mentioned them earlier in this conversation. The injuries have increased under your watch. What is the reason for that? Is it a measure of morale? Or is this an unsafe work environment?** **** The work environment is safe. When you look at the number of fires we’ve had, our fires have gone down significantly. I can’t tell you why a person is sick or why they go to the clinic. I just can’t say anything about.. . . **Do you think that the statistic is a sign of poor morale?** ****I can’t comment on that. I just don’t know. If the morale is low, every leadership book that I’ve read, the folks at the Pentagon that I’ve talked to, indicate morale starts at the first-line supervisor. If you have a sergeant or a lieutenant who’s out there managing the company who says the fire chief doesn’t know what he’s doing, that’s actually deleterious to management. And it can influence morale. The folks who influence morale are the folks they work with every day. Which is why we’re looking at a different structure in terms of our management. **I was out at Engine 10 the other night observing their soft-posting [in which firefighters in Northeast sit in their parked truck on the street to deter crime]. Several guys out there are adamant that they have no clue what they are doing, and they believe this is personal retaliation. What is the reason for this policy?** ****I grew up in Washington D.C. The area where I grew up had a swimming pool not far away. That swimming pool serviced three or four different neighborhoods. This soft-posting idea came up during a safe summer initiative when we realized where we put a fire truck at a place where different neighborhoods, where different factions came together, it would reduce incidents or confrontations. And it worked. That particular part of the city was experiencing a high volume of incidents that were contrary to the public good and to safe society.. . . To say that it’s personal? I don’t know those guys. **Well, several of them have been in disciplinary trouble. There is a feeling that Engine 10 used to be a desirable place to work and now they are feeling significant pain under your tenure.** Well, if they have been in disciplinary trouble, it’s not because of something I did. I don’t know them, and quite frankly, anybody who gets in disciplinary trouble, it’s not because of something I did. Their actions cause a reaction that may be disciplinary. **You don’t seem to be bothered at all by the fact that you’re not liked. Do you feel that’s a fair assumption, that you’re not liked?** Ummm . . . I know people who like me a lot. [laughs] You don’t take a position of responsibility to manage under particular change and expect people to like you or like the things you stand for. If you ask them something about me personally? Find out what they know. They don’t know me. **There have been pictures sent around with your face on Osama bin Laden’s body. . . your face on the Grinch. Have you seen that one?** ********[shakes head]. . . ********It’s not something unusual for people in leadership. And I’m not comparing myself to these people. The Dalai Lama was just at the White House, someone who was denounced by an entire country. We have a president that is not liked by everybody. We have a mayor and council members who are not liked by everybody. When you are trying to initiate substantive change in a dysfunctional environment, where people have become comfortable, then that makes them uncomfortable. That discomfort has to be focused somewhere. **You have reported lower response times, in part because of an emphasis on the chute time [the time it takes for firefighters to leave a firehouse]. With that comes the criticism that guys feel like they are under constant surveillance. Do you feel like that is necessary in order to ensure good performance?** There should be direct action when people don’t do what they’re supposed to. I’ll give you an example. On Massachusetts Avenue, in Southeast, right at Texas Avenue, there is a speed camera. People used to fly up and down Mass Avenue. If you look at that traffic now, and I’ve done it. I’ve parked my personal vehicle on the side and watched the traffic on Mass Ave. People slow down now, because if they don’t, the camera gets a picture of them and they get a ticket. Or the camera may not even work for all I know. But I know it’s changed the behavior. And we have a chute time for a reason. Somebody has made a call out there and needs our help. The idea of lackadaisically finishing your sandwich, or watching the end of this TV program or slowly approaching the apparatus is not acceptable. That person made a call for help. And I would venture to say that now that we’re paying attention and people know that we’re paying attention, that response time has been reduced. If they feel like they are going to get in trouble for not doing their jobs, they are absolutely correct. **And do you go out to observe different calls? There are theories that you float around out there.** I live in the city. I’m all over the place. Tell them I am ubiquitous. I am omnipresent if that’s what they want to think. I am watching all of the time. Because I care about what happens in this city. And I’m going to see if I can’t clone my car and get about 10 of them and strategically place them around the city or ask some clones of me to drive them. [laughter] No, seriously, I watch. **You go out in a black SUV, right?** ****They know what I drive. **** **So your message to them is if they feel watched, it’s good that they feel watched?** It’s possible that they are being watched. Most times, I see them performing their work admirably. If they don't, I don’t walk away from it. This is where folks seem to think that I’m petty. But I will not walk past anything that is not right. **Do you feel like any of the ill-will directed toward you is racially driven?** ****You know, I’m glad you asked that question, because I refuse to. . . well, let me say this first. There is a belief that people who practice racist behavior have some level of ignorance. And I’m not going to give anybody a pass based on a presupposed level of ignorance due to racism. That’s a pass. I’m not giving them that. They have their own morals, their own character. They can choose to behave the way they want personally. I’m focused on their professional behavior. If that doesn’t meet the standards that the department requires, then that’s when we have an issue. **So you didn’t say yes or no?** ****That’s my view. And I want you to write that. Because I don’t want folks to try to label a behavior that has a shroud of explanation and ignorance. I don’t want to give anybody that pass.